Decorum #2 Review

Writer: Jonathan Hickman / Artist: Mike Huddleston / Image I said something to this effect when I was reviewing Decorum #1 many moons ago, but I genuinely want to know what the actual #$%@ a Hickman script looks like and the process in which Huddleston manages to convert text into the bizarre panels that line this comic. It’s been a few months, so if you need a refresher, Decorum is ostensibly about a mild-mannered assassin doing mild-mannered assassin things.  

I say ‘ostensibly’ because the first chapter of Decorum #2 was a “brief” glimpse into the inner workings of the “Church of Singularity”. I put brief in quotations because this takes up approximately a third of the book, including the patented Hickman infographic with esoteric runes from an alien language that diagrams the clergy structure of what I think are robots. Like, I open up Decorum #1 to remind myself where the last issue had left, and it turns out, I had remembered how the issue ended. But Hickman decided that learning about the Church of Singularity took precedence over the adventures of the mild-mannered assassin from the first issue. And the thing is, it was so brilliantly conceived and executed, that it is hard not to immediately see that Hickman is masterfully constructing the scope of the series with a deft hand. By the end of the issue, my hands were raised in the air in utter disbelief. If I had a physical copy, I’d probably be able to hear the rustling of the comic pages. Hickman is just that g…