Writer: Frank Tieri

Art: Angel Unzueta & Jose Luis with Scott Hanna

Price: $3.99

Release Date: February 26th, 2020

Ravencroft #2 is something of an anomaly for me. This is a series that gives Frank Tieri permission to write Orange is The New Black but with supervillains, not women. We are given a Wilson Fisk as THE DULY ELECTED Kingpin of New York. And Mayor Fisk has rebuilt Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. And no matter how you cut it, it’s still Marvels own Arkham Asylum.

But this is still a series that, to me at least, is very much finding its feet. Figuring out what exactly it wants to be. Tieri’s writing is engrossing enough just because it’s coming from the viewpoint of Big Willie Fisk. However very little actually progressed through the issue. I can’t fault it too much though because it showed an insight into the mind of one of the most pervasive villains of the marvel universe.

The choices Fisk is making, hiring fellow supervillains as staff is fascinating to me. It’s like hiring Joker to be a guard or a doctor at Arkham. Common sense dictates that it’s a ridiculous idea. But with Fisk’s history with Ravencroft and the secrets in the basement cells of the unwanted promise intriguing things to come, and there are even hints of necromancy which would be amazing.

The artwork is beautiful, almost cinematic in tone and scope. The colors are rich and fluid. They add such depth and dimension to the imagery that your eye is drawn along from panel to panel. However, something needs to happen next issue otherwise it’s going to become a bore of a month to month book.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot of potential here for this series. This could be an absolutely amazing series that subverts expectations for what comics can bring to their readers but at the moment, the setup is what it is… a setup. Expect a slow burn with this one.

6/10