Chuck Brown’s “Flawed” is yet another action packed and entertaining narrative in his bibliography focused around P.O.C. characters without pandering towards the demographic or over-exaggerating stereotypes.
Yeah, Gem’s a psychiatrist, but I can remember Ms. Burton and Laqueshia who both were court appointed therapists for me in my teen’s spent in California’s foster care system and after I emancipated out. Plenty of people like to take a dump on this much needed profession, especially within the so-called “black” community, which is ironic, because our demographic needs it more than most. Chuck Brown decided to turn Gem into a superhero. And yeah she’s more peak human than superhuman but in this issue and throughout the series she’s the picture of action, which Prenzy is able to capture in a style that makes it hard to know the beautiful melaninated faces on the page.
The focus on eugenics and the overall genetic superiority of the melanin dominant makeup is a topic that Brown never shies away from, but the way that her interweaves this truth into “Flawed”, is never contrived or put together with a feeling of going down an old beaten path.
Every character is amazing and fresh, from the hitwoman with newsboy flavour who opens up the scene guns blazing at Gem, to Ammit who is Gem’s Leslie Thompkins and has animals trained to kill like a security team of ex- NAVY S.E.A.L.S.
The exposure of corruption at the highest places all in the chase of immortality to the lowest rungs of society where a girl can be abducted with a cheeseburger dug out the garbage can sitting like a pound of gold in her hand are all present here. As Chuck Brown drops knowledge akin to diamonds with Prenzy’s assistance showing that no one is immune to being humbled, in one panel where a character who is shredded of nearly everything gets stripped of his dignity as well and is made to sit down with a stream of well aimed choice words.
Ending with something of a foreword by the accomplished Julian C. Chambliss and beginning with a cover by a comics legend (Denys Cowan) known to make “Milestone’s” , Chuck Brown’s most recent installment is a standout on the rack. Combining neo-crime noir and blaxplotation elements with action heroics and philosophies based on eugenics and psychiatry not seen this deep since Tom King’s “Heroes In Crisis”, Chuck Brown’s “Flawed” is a praiseworthy piece.
SCORE: 4.5/5