Comic Review: Pretty Deadly: The Rat #2

The third volume of Pretty Deadly, titled The Rat, again takes up the story of the Fields family, Sissy, and Ginny, Death’s daughter and Reaper of Vengeance. The first volume told the story of Sissy defeating the Old Death and taking his place, the second took Ginny to France to defeat the War Reaper, and now we rejoin Ginny as she seeks the other wayward reapers and crosses paths with the Fields family once more. Matriarch Sarah Fields has long-since passed, but her granddaughter Clara has recently met an untimely demise as well. Her uncle Frank has summoned Ginny to help solve and avenge her murder.

In Volume 2, The Bear, artist and writer team Emma Rios and Kelly Sue DeConnick successfully transitioned their surrealist Western fable to a story set in World War I. The third story, jumping ahead in time again, transforms again to a noir mystery set in Hollywood’s golden age.

When Pretty Deadly was first released, many critics took issue with the convoluted narrative DeConnick constructed, citing the Butterfly and Bone Bunny framing device as one of several storytelling choices that prevent the user from immersing themselves in the story and/or understanding the characters and plot. While some of Pretty Deadly might be rightly described as experimental storytelling, it’s not any more convoluted than Gaiman’s Sandman series.

That being said, while Butterfly and Bone Bunny remain, The Rat seems to leave behind some of the surrealism for a more magical realism tone. Ginny is still a supernatural agent, and her interrogation of Clara’s former employer includes a creepy reaper-power vision of the dead girl (and a lovely little nod to Footlight Parade).

Rios’s art is amazing, as always, and it is her layout and stylistic choices that keep the “Western fairytale” spirit alive despite the Western component being largely gone. There are a few “blink and you’ll miss it” moments where Clara’s boss is likened to the king from the Rumpelstiltskin story, with Clara hunched over a spinning wheel. Could this be foreshadowing that Clara herself was getting help from beyond the mortal world? Ginny makes a brief statement toward the end regarding Clara’s soul that makes this a strong possibility. 

Issue 2 of Pretty Deadly: The Rat was released on October 9, and the next issue is slated for November 6. If you’ve been curious about the series but haven’t gotten around to checking it out, this volume is a great opportunity to dive in.