Reckless (Reckless, #1)

Reckless (Reckless, #1)

Ed Brubaker

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles, and the best new twist on paperback pulp heroes since The Punisher or Jack Reacher. ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS, the modern masters of crime noir, bring us the last thing anyone expected from them—a good guy. A bold new series of original graphic novels, with three books releasing over the next year, each a full-length story that stands on its own. Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past. “Oh man this book pushed EVERY crime fiction button for me. Working class setting covering up for a deeper societal rot, a battered, damaged (literally) protagonist against the beast, and all of it squirming and lunging through an over-lit early 80s L.A. Noir bleached to bleakness. Bliss." —Patton Oswalt “Imagine Redford at his peak, ambling through sun-drenched, eighties L.A. in a serpentine plot that is equal parts Long Goodbye and Point Break. No one does crime fic like BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS and their collaboration has never felt more new. Explosive. Vital. And yes...reckless. I love this book.” —Damon Lindelof (Lost, HBO’s Watchmen) "RECKLESS is an absolute rush: on the same level as golden age Travis McGee novels and the hardest-hitting Richard Stark stories. This one comes at you as fast as Steve McQueen in a souped-up Mustang and as hard as Charles Bronson with a baseball bat. You gotta have it." —Joe Hill (Locke & Key, N0S4A2) Look for Book Two in the RECKLESS series in April 2021!

Publication Year: 2020


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  • FrankCobretti
    Apr 30, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    I enjoyed 'Reckless.'

    The first volume in what writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips expect to become a detective series introduces us to Ethan Reckless. It's 1980. Reckless is a one-man A-Team operating out of a shuttered L.A. movie palace. A femme fatale, who's also an ancien amour, calls on Ethan for help. And who is he to say no?

    This volume does a lot of lifting. It introduces us to Ethan and his supporting cast. It gives us his backstory, acquaints us with his milieu, and gives us a feel for the character. Oh, and it gives us a mystery for the hero to solve, bad guys to fight, etc. It's like the pilot episode of a detective show, putting the pieces in place so future episodes can can carry on with a panel or two to bring the new reader up to speed.

    'Reckless' handles all this very well. I particularly liked the fact that it wrapped up its mystery in one volume. I put my money down expecting a story, and I got one. It's pulpy, it's grimy, it's fun, and it's *complete.*

    I look forward to reading the next volume.

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