Marla Drake continues her erratic, time-crossed search for love and redemption in Miss Fury #9. Having apparently murdered her doppelganger in another time stream, she is now impersonating herself in order to get near enough to Harmon aka the Pharaoh of Time, another (and far more skilled) timeline traveler and manipulator to kill him. If she kills him, Schauburger, a man she killed in another reality, but who is still somehow around in a less-than-tangible form will return the man she loves to her. On the other hand, if she kills for him, she just might get Chandler back that way.
Yes. It’s crazy and it takes some tracking. It’s also fun to watch Williams put yet more twists and turns into an already complicated time-travel story. What sells this, though, are Marla’s wry asides. She’s a self-aware anti-hero, someone struggling (occasionally) to be a true hero while also aware just how easily she can and does choose the expedient route and able to comment on this with some detachment as she narrates the story (To whom? One does wonder).
Herbert does a great job of portraying Marla’s emotions–and her motion. There is a lot of activity here, and the rapid movement and fighting style of the heroine are well-portrayed. Herbert’s work also borrows from early pulp comics without aping them, making a distinctive style well-suited to the book which itself balances between old-style pulp and newer, more nuanced storytelling.
Picking the book up here would be hard; there is some recapping, but so much has happened in so many different, fractured timelines, I am not sure how well a new reader would be able to balance all of the information. It is worth finding a summary or cheat sheet to help you jump in, though, to see one of the craziest time travel stories around work its way to a finale.
