DESTROY ALL MONSTERS is everything you want from a noir comic. This creative team continues to do what they do best: break your heart. Read Full Review

Riveting, compelling, astounding. If only all comics could be this good.

I still think the second was the best but, damm, this was great. I need more of this series for a long time.

Reckless: Destroy All Monsters (2021) by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillips (Image)

I acknowledge in a lot of my reviews how much I tend to appreciate long-standing creator collaborations. If i like a particular work, I’ll naturally find other projects they worked on together either before or after to search for that same reoccurrence or “spark”; Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are quite possibly the most acclaimed tour de force in the medium (amassing an impressive ten Eisners).

This super team took home Eisners for “Best Original Graphic Novel” in 2019 with “My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies” and “Pulp” in 2021 (which was one of my favorites). Late 2021, they released the third installment in the Reckless series with Destroy All Monsters. The book received three (3) Eisners in 2022 for “Best Writer”, “Best Original Graphic Novel”, and “Best Coloring”. I should note that Sean’s son, Jacob, has joined them on coloring the last few projects and received his own nomination. The book is the best received in the series, with user ratings of 4.3 on Goodreads, 4.8 on Amazon, and 9.6 on Comic Book Roundup.

Context aside, the book was good. I love the art and format. I hadn’t read the previous Reckless books (but that didn’t seem to detract from the story and the book fits well as a stand alone). The characters were interesting and worth returning to, but the story was somewhat smaller in scale than I had hoped. It definitely had the feel or influence from Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. Very enjoyable, not exceptional. more