Five volumes into the 'Lady Mechanika' series, it's pretty clear that its creator, Joe Benítez, has a template. Each volume features a standalone story that explores entirely new material while also progressing the present-day stories of the core characters a little further. These stories are varied in length but often short, this one following 'The Clockwork Assassin' by taking only three chapters to unfold. However, it also features a prelude that drops further hints at Lady Mechanika's origins without actually pushing that story on much at all.

Like 'The Clockwork Assassin', this prelude ties back to the first volume. However, this time that's to 'The Demon of Satan's Alley', the best background we've had thus far on Lady Mechanika. Lord Blackpool has acquired a relic, a mechanical arm that's far more advanced than any his Blackpool Armaments Company is working on and may be something like her. It came from the Blythe House, an abandoned country house, but it's being kept in the Laboratory for Biological and Mechanical Research, where Archie Lewis used to work. Mr. Higgins from 'The Demon of Satan's Alley' lets her in, albeit after being politely forced. It's identical to her arms.

And then she finds herself battling a security force in fetishistic outfits but it's not Blackpool's. It's here for the arm, too, and its androgynous but likely female leader clearly sees Lady Mechanika as an inferior version of her, right down to the red eyes. That's interesting. And she gets the arm, too, as Lady Mechanika has to save Higgins. I like these little preludes, but as much as I like the original stories too, I wish they were far more substantial and actually did more than hint at the back story of the lead character. After five volumes, it seems like we should know a lot more than we do, but while visiting Blythe House triggers a memory for Lady Mechanika, it doesn't help us much.

Meanwhile, there's a new story, though it's really an old story in new clothes. If you recognise that French title from somewhere else, then you know pretty much everything still to come. Of course, if you don't, my telling you that it's a poem by John Keats won't help you. You'd have to read it for the spoilers to manifest. Well, either that or recognise the other giveaway that's delivered in yet another language. This story is about Archie's muse and soon fiancée, a widow named Mrs. Leanna Shi. If you haven't read Keats but know how to spell that surname in Gaelic, you may still know the story to come and can guess at the twist that wraps it up neatly.

Leanna is a lovely lady but she doesn't seem quite right from the outset. Her presence energises Archie to wild creative degrees but he can't seem to see beyond her. All his attention is dedicated to her and what he can create because of her, which rudely shifts Lady Mechanika and even Fred, his niece, firmly into the background, something they find frustrating. Of course, Leanna is surely enticing and, just in case we haven't figured it all out by this point, Benítez continues to tease the story behind the story.

My favourite scenes here all tie to creation. Early on, Lady Mechanika takes Fred to the Museum of Art to see the Lorenzo di Matteo exhibit. His work is amazing but so is the work of Benítez and Martin Montiel that shows it to us. I dearly want that dragon on a globe. Much later, after Archie has mysteriously vanished, Lady Mechanika visits Leanna's house. She's gone but there are a slew of cultural artefacts on show: a signed handwritten nocturne by Chopin, a journal of unpublished poems by Keats and plenty of others, all by creative geniuses who died young. Including a painting of Leanna by Lorenzo di Matteo, who died in 1664.

There's an effective location shift, too; by airship to Paris and the Château de Fée just outside. As always, the art is delightful, even if, as always, somewhat static because every panel seems posed. I've mentioned this in other reviews but it occurs to me that there is a good reason for it. This is a steampunk comic book, emphatically so, and that renders the Victorian era as the primary visual aesthetic. Back then, photographs weren't instant things. People had to pose and remain still for them, almost like they did in earlier centuries while having their portrait painted. It makes a kind of sense for these panels to follow suit, but I may be digging a little deep with that.

Any which way, this is an entertaining story. The most negative aspect is that it's very much an old story shoehorned into the series. I have no problem with that and it's written well enough, but it's often frustratingly familiar and even a passing awareness of the source makes it predictable. Last time out, the writers kept me guessing throughout and caught me by surprise with their eventual reveal. Here, I knew what was coming from the outset and there was nothing to add to what I saw coming. Add to that yet another tease that goes nowhere and this volume is a little frustrating.

Next up, a more substantial story, I believe, in 'Sangre', the sixth volume in the series which takes Lady Mechanika to Spain. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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