Trese: Mass Murders (Trese Book 3)
My copy of Trese: Mass Murders was delivered to my house yesterday. It feels good to pre-order something in the Philippines, and actually get it on time!
For those who don't know, Trese is a horror-action graphic novel series that draws heavily on Philippine myths, Manila's urban legends, and has a protagonist who seems like the lovechild of John Constantine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I bought the first one, loved it, loaned it to my friends and family, and my sister Isab liked it so much she went on and bought book 2.
(The last time Isab bought a Pinoy comic book was in the early 90s, when we pooled our lunch money to buy Funny Komiks every Friday. Oh, those were the days...)
Mass Murders is a very welcome addition to the Trese series. Much of the book is a flashback to the life of the characters before the events of the first two books, and it provides a very welcome look at the personality, motivation, and history of Alexandra Trese, the Kambal, and other characters. It manages to answer a lot of questions about the people and the series itself, while giving us more.
(Somebody once called the failure to do the last part properly in a piece of work the JJ Abrams problem, or the Chris Carter problem: you provide too many questions and teasers while not giving your fans anything substantial. See: Lost Season 2; X-Files' last few seasons)
Each book in the series consists of self-contained stories, each revolving around a supernatural case that Trese is working on. While the first two books were highly episodic as a result, with little tying in one case to the next except for the characters, Mass Murders is very different in that there's an arc to the cases here - there's a recurring villain who ties most of the stories together, and the final part is a "finale" battle with this Big Bad. Very Buffy-ish, but I approve.
I like the fact that Mass Murders is both accessible to newbies yet very rewarding to continuity hounds like me - things that were foreshadowed in the first two books come to play in this one, and the payoff is very satisfying. I also want to see more of the characters introduced in this one, including Trese's family: her father, grandfather, and four(!) older brothers all seem pretty interesting, and I want them to come back to either help or hinder Trese's investigation. (If I could only get one back, maybe Trese's priest brother... or the one who's an akyat-bahay.) Kambal fans would also love this issue, as this installment shows the Kambal to be more than just a bunch of bored supernatural killing machines - they show a competence and intelligence in dealing with the weird that was only hinted at before.
I have a small problem distinguishing some minor characters from each other - but then the minor characters don't last long enough for this to be a problem anyway. My biggest complaint with this issue is that despite the title, we don't get a cameo from National Artist and Massacre Movie Master Carlo J. Caparas, or his muse Kris Aquino. :P