Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead #3

Created by: Steve Pugh, Warren Ellis

Written by: Steve Pugh

Pencils by: Steve Pugh

Colors by: Steve Pugh

Lettering by: Steve Pugh

Cover art by: Steve Pugh, Alan Brooks

Released: 5/20/09

All this month, I’ve been reviewing the amazing Hotwire series. If you missed #1  and  #2 , check the hotlinks for those reviews.

Fifty years ago the blue light ghosts began appearing, clinging to technology. They’ve found a way to stop the newly dead from coming back, and keeping spirits out of good neighborhoods. Alice Hotwire keeps the peace, but the blue lights aren’t acting normal, for one they’re stronger and all signs point to someone weaponizing them. The city is plagued with riots, and the police have their hands full, too focused on them rather than the bigger danger the blue lights pose.

Day five of the riots, and the cops are forced to pull back further, as they lose more ground to the out of control rioters. The rioters want Detective Kellogg and Marlow’s head on a platter, but so far the commander is working to protect them, though her patience with the two detectives is running thin. It would serve the arrogant bastards right if she handed them over to the angry mob.  

 Meanwhile, Hotwire and Mobey head to Mots Island Maximum security cemetery, where some of the worst hard-core murderers and crazies from a slew of territories are housed.  They suspect the ghost bombs are originating here, but what they find there may be more than even Hotwire can handle. The worst possible criminals make even more dangerous blue lights, and when their puppeteer ends up among the dead, its up to Hotwire to figure out who’s really pulling the strings, before she ends up the very thing she hunts.

A thrilling third chapter to the Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead series. This late in the game there are still plenty of surprises, and just when you think you know where the story is headed, it delivers another twist. Steve Pugh’s storytelling is masterful, and his artwork is so superb that the story leaps off the pages. Seriously why isn’t this a movie yet? Hotwire should be at the top of everyone’s reading list, it’s definitely at the top of mine, and there is only one chapter left in this thrilling story!