Review time! with ‘Minerva’s Map’

“She’ll empty the sand from her shoes in Paradise, sail out across the bay; she’ll dance under an island sky until the break of day”

Lev Gleason Comics (through its imprint New Friday) brings us Minerva’s Map: The Key to a Perfect Apocalypse, which is written and drawn by Stefan Tosheff, lettered by Andrew Thomas, and edited by Conor Moher. Let’s give it a look!

This is the kind of story I eat up with a damned spoon, so I enjoyed it. It’s not the greatest comic in the world, but it is danged entertaining. It’s basically the Indiana Jones-type character, having adventures and getting into trouble. I love this kind of shit, man! Marshal Minerva (a weird name, as it’s not a title, it seems) is the world’s greatest private detective, apparently, and a mysterious woman hires her to find some mystical artifacts, the first of which is a kind of skeleton key. Said key is in possession of a young Chinese man who’s the latest person in his family to safeguard it (and who has weird dreams about some kind of monster), but Minerva isn’t the only one after it, as three brothers get to him before she does and she has to rescue him. Meanwhile, there’s a linguistics professor in possession of another mystical artifact she needs to get, and she can only get it using the key. There are many action scenes, naturally, and there’s an end-of-the-world cult, because of course there is, and it’s all just a lot of fun.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but that’s fine if you tell a story well, and Tosheff does. He does some clever things, especially with Minerva. She’s the best P.I. in the world, but she’s kind of a brawler, and she’s not the smartest person around. What she has is a magic map (hence the title) that shows her where things are. The refreshing thing about this book is that it’s NOT an origin story – we don’t know how she got this map or how it works, just that it does and we just have to deal with that. Presumably, if Tosheff continues with her adventures, we’ll find out eventually, but it simply remains a mysterious and magical map, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Meanwhile, as is pretty standard in these stories, Minerva is a gives-no-fucks kind of character, brash and brassy and unapologetic about it (she has a nice side, of course, because these kinds of characters always have a nice side), but because Tosheff has made it clear that she’s not the smartest person around and she relies so heavily on her map (which she keeps a secret, although another character does get a hold of it during the book), the subtext is that she’s very insecure, and that comes across a bit in the book, until at the end, when she softens just a bit around another character, it comes across as more sincere than if she were an aloof genius. It’s solid work.

There’s also the diversity of the cast, which is nicely handled. As I have pointed out recently, I have no problem with a diverse cast, but when it’s hammered home how diverse they are, it gets in the way of storytelling, and Tosheff doesn’t do that. Of the main characters, two are women (one is darker-skinned, so she might be Hispanic or Native American or Indian, but Tosheff doesn’t say), and there’s an Asian man, a black man, and the three brothers, who are Slavic (in other words, white, but not ‘Murican). It’s a nice mix, and because Tosehff doesn’t comment on their ethnicities at all (the monster the dude with the key dreams about feels Asian, but that’s about it), we’re able to think about how those ethnicities help background the characters without Tosheff pummeling us with it. The characters are interesting, three-dimensional, distinctive, and largely non-stereotypical. Even the villains aren’t just cookie-cutter bad guys, and that makes the book more entertaining. The fact that they’re different ethnicities is nice, and because Tosheff doesn’t make it part of the text, we can consider the way their ethnicities inform their actions ourselves.

Tosheff’s art is solid, too. His lines are rounded and smooth, which helps with his frenetic action scenes, and his monster is a weird creature that fits in well with the landscape, which is important (as you’ll see if you read this). His characters are interesting – they’re all attractive, which is usually the case with comics, but in different and unique ways. Minerva herself, despite being a cute blonde, always looks a bit disheveled, which works with her character, and even the three somewhat evil brothers have a kind of rough-hewed attractiveness. Tosheff does a good job thinking about what these characters would wear, and their clothes tend to reflect their personalities, which is nice. He does a good job with places, as the action moves around the world, and Tosheff gives us interesting buildings in some places and lush jungles in others, with Minerva’s office and town in which she lives particularly nicely done, as her office reflects her personality. The book has a lot of action, and Tosheff choreographs it well, as it’s never unclear what’s going on. The book is nice and bright, too, and Tosheff uses lurid colors sparingly but effectively to hint at the weird supernatural stuff lurking around the corner in this world. It’s a good-looking comic.

Minerva’s Map certainly feels like it could be the first in a long line of comics – there’s really no reason why Marshal Minerva couldn’t have many, many adventures, except for the fact that Tosheff might not be able to make any money doing them. It’s a nice action-adventure with interesting characters and good art. That ain’t a bad combination!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆