Fair Lady #1

Image Comic's newest title, Fair Lady, is an interesting blend. A detective-noir series in a post-war fantasy setting filled with beast-men and mages, it promises a unique take on real world issues. Fair Lady takes place after an event known as "the War of the Harshland" that, at its conclusion, left its standing soldiers with the responsibility of integrating into society. As the intro to the comic claims, "some found employment. Some turned to crime. Some became the first licensed investigators: the first Fairmen."

Our comic follows the only Fairlady: a woman named Jenner Faulds. Jenner pretended to be a man in order to fight as a soldier in the war, and was able to obtain employment as a security adviser for a wizard when the war ended. On the side our heroine works as a Fairlady, investigating different cases for individual contractors. The first case we see Jenner work involves the disappearance of a woman who stole from her employer, a case she works with her partner, a cat-like humanoid named Oanu.

Their hunt is punctuated with snippets of the missing woman's diary. It reveals the toll the war took on her, the losses she suffered, and what eventually led her to steal money from her employer. Through her diary, we get a deeper glimpse into the world in which Fair Lady takes place. The perspective of a civilian who was affected by and suffered due to the War of the Harshland. The woman's diary is our first look at the painful scars left at the end of the war, a glimpse into the deeper tragedy that Jenner, as a former soldier, seems to wish to avoid.

While the end of Fair Lady #1 sees the conclusion of their case, it also leaves multiple story hooks open to explore. The War of the Harshland, while heavily alluded to, is given very little solid information. Oasu's race, the Jesu, are implied to be heavily discriminated against for reasons currently unknown. We meet a couple powerful crime lords who may play heavily into future stories. Jenner's own role in the war and her experiences as a woman masquerading as a man aren't even heavily explored yet.

Ultimately, Fair Lady #1 is a book that sets the tone for the rest of the series. It doesn't leave us with another mystery to solve, but it gives us background information on the world, introduces us to its cast of characters, and lets us know what the tone of the book is. I would recommend Fair Lady to anyone interested in detective-noir comics, fans of Rat Queens (another great Image comic), and anybody who watched or read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and thought, "what happened to all the non-named characters when the War of Three Kingdoms ended?"