Leave It To Chance - Monster Madness [2003] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Leave It To Chance - Monster Madness [2003]

Created by Paul Smith and James Robinson, LEAVE IT TO CHANCE features the adventures of Chance Falconer, the only child of widowed Lucas Falconer, the protector of the town of Devil's Echo against paranormal threats. At age 14 she's shocked to discover that her father won't take her on as an assistant, insisting the Falconer heroic liniage only passes to the male heir. She rebels at that outdated thinking, and constantly gets into adventures, aided by her pet dragon and other friends.

The series was published for 13 issues from 1996 to 2002, following Smith and Robinson's 1993 collaboration on THE GOLDEN AGE at DC. The first twelve were under Jim Lee's Homage banner (as it moved from an independent company to a Wildstorm imprint at Image to a DC imprint) and the last, after a three year gap, by Image. Image also released three large European style hardcovers in 2002-2003, collecting the first eleven issues. This is the third of them, with #9 to #11 of the series.  By this point George Freeman had been brought on as the inker.

The book opens with the two-part "Monster Madness", where a spell brings some movie monsters from a revival theatre to life, and they begin to terrorize the town. Paul Smith's versions of the classic monsters are a delight, and the story has some interesting twists and possibilities for the long-term plans for the series.

The next story is "Dead Men Can't Skate", and features Chance attending a hockey game with her father, their butler, their housekeeper and her dragon. Just a regular day out, which ends up with a dead player coming back to life, with an early invocation of the "Air Bud rule", that the rules don't say a dead man can't play (yes, I checked, AIR BUD was 1997, the original comic was 1998).

Pretty enjoyable stuff, although I'd say of the three LEAVE IT TO CHANCE reprint books this is my least favourite. Not bad, just the first two are much better (for the record, #2 is probably #1, and #1 is #2. If they ever release #4, that'll be #3, making #3 ranked #4.  And although the statute of limitations on wishful thinking it probably expired, I still hold out hope that they'll get back to it, and that it'll be so good that #5 will be #1, #2 will be #2...).

For the series as a whole, Smith's art (with or without Freeman's inks) is just so clean and slick, a delight, with perfectly expressive characters and a real sense of place in Devil's Echo. And I run hot and cold on Robinson, but this is by a wide margin my favourite of everything I've read from him.