"Long John Silver: Neptune" strips the honor of piracy and stoops to deception, violence & mutiny of common men

Long John Silver's second volume, Neptune, really hits home when it comes to portraying the conditions of living on a ship on the high seas, full of pirates, treacherous criminals and a lack of order in general.   The (in)famous captain of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island decides to take matters into his own hands, and betray not only Lady Vivian Hastings, but also the current captain of Neptune ship in starting a mutiny, during which Long John Silver cuts off the captain's arm before throwing him overboard into the wild and stormy sea.   It is an ominous scene, executed during the darkest night, on a ship that is slowly losing its soul, and heading into the unknown with perhaps even more doubt than ever before.

Artist Mathieu Lauffray surpasses his own work from the first volume, and in this issue his frames and pages are alive with the wildness of a rather angry ocean and the bluest of all nights, leaving the  reader with an impression of classical, 18th century paintings.  Without exaggerating, I can honestly say this is one of the most impressively illustrated graphic novels I've ever come across.  The Neptune ship in this volume appears to be a vessel from hell, carrying an array of lost souls back into the underworld where they belong, with newly crowned captain LJS playing the role of Lucifer himself.  The fact that he lets a young man (Jack) receive a fatal whipping due to a "crime" he didn't even commit (Lady Hastings' servant girl, Elsie, was murdered by Silver's scoundrels when she discovered information detrimental to his position) only further solidifies that he no longer has a soul, if he ever had one to begin with.

The writing by both Lauffray and Xavier Dorison is sharp and honest, never giving us too much unnecessary chit-chat, but only the essential information that their characters need to share externally.  More than just a rousing tale of pirates looking for long-lost legendary treasures that the first volume of this series promised us, Neptune dives deeper into the mythology of easily corrupted pirates and the true evil that lies deep within hearts of those whose primary objective in life is greed.  It is a dark tale, to be sure, but also an adventure whose conclusion I wouldn't miss for anything in the world.  I can't wait for The Emerald Maze.
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