Case Files:

Sam and Twitch

#14

Sam Burken and Twitch Williams are partner detectives whose demeanors and styles are as different as their body styles. The brilliant and slightly insane Twitch is very lanky and sports a crazy doo plus a bushy mustache. While Sam is a ruthless tough-guy with a heart of gold that operates of experience and instinct as well as a short temper and possess the standard large body style complete with dry sarcasm. This duo was lucky enough to become involved with Spawn on several occasions and have picked up a knack for obscure and supernatural crimes. Thus, whenever things get really weird, they send in Sam and Twitch. They are two normal guys up against some seriously abnormal crimes and through their extreme luck and skill somehow survive where most would surely be driven insane or utterly destroyed.

The cover by Greg Capullo is, as always, amazingly cool and has nothing to do with the story inside. A story well written by Mark Andreyko that at first seems to be a sort of fake vampire killing mystery. As the comic progresses, however, it seems that there may be some weirdness to the crime after all. The art by E.J. Su is far less grime and grit than previous artists and features a far more pleasant looking Twitch, which is very appropriate in my opinion because Twitch has regained some mental stability. He actually looks like a good guy now. Su’s art is far more shading oriented and not sketchy at all, but most importantly is well done and consistent (avid readers will note these are my most important art aspects).

Case Files #14 begins with some drug runners delivering a shipment of heroine. It seems the buyers can’t wait for the goods, and the dealers find themselves lacking throats and large amounts of blood. All except one, who went back onto the ship and might have escaped death for the time being. One thing is for sure, a crime as strange as this requires two specific men, Sam and Twitch. The gruesome twosome show up and casually throw out the idea of vampires (far too casually). The detective on the job then notices that the victims have brands of salamanders. These are the “Black Salamanders” that supposedly mark a group of legendary Chinese vampires and their victims. It just so happens that an 80-year-old Chinese lady by the name of Chu Lei is rumored to be a descendant of the vampire mother and lives real close by. Chu Lei does not look a day over 79, or 20 for that matter. In fact, Chu Lei’s sexy behind is timeless in my opinion, a feature that is considered unlucky by those that hunt the undead.

Think of it as a meaner, more gruesome X-Files without those annoying episodes that actually pertain to some plot. That’s Sam and Twitch, standard detective action with some spooky stuff mixed in. It’s about time some normal people made some progress in the abnormal world of comic books.