The Private Eye

Vaughan (Saga) and Martin (Batgirl: Year One) team up for a noirish SF adventure that’s as absorbing as it is gorgeous. Decades after “the cloud” bursts, pushing everyone’s secrets into the open and destroying all semblance of online security, the Internet is no more and people have become obsessed with privacy: all adults wear masks in public. The press and police have combined into the armed Fourth Estate. When P.I., a paparazzo, is hired by a woman who rapidly turns up dead, he and the client’s sister dive headlong into a conspiracy that could threaten the privacy (and lives) of everyone they love. Vaughan and Martin’s vision of the future is chilling in its realism, but fascinating in its hyperbole. Martin’s art—accentuated beautifully by Vicente’s colors—handles thrilling action and contemplative scenes equally well, allowing Vaughan’s script to dig deep into identity, the balance between liberty and security, the role of technology in our lives, and the implicit trust we place in it. (Dec.)