This is the third volume in the 'Lady Mechanika' series and it's clearly thinner than the first two. 'The Tablet of Destinies', which preceded it, unfolded over five chapters, while this only reaches a couple. Now, I'm a strong advocate in stories being as long or as short as they need to be, so I have no complaints here. This is simply a two-chapter story that's told in two chapters, that just happens to follow a five-chapter story told in five. However, I should point out that it was bulked up for the graphic novel format, not just with the usual cover gallery but through the inclusion of pages of story that weren't in the original comic. That seems odd.

Maybe it's why there are a heck of a lot more names attached to something less substantial. I'm only seeing one writer, but two pencillers, three colourers and a letterer; maybe that's two sets of people, one for the original comic book and another for the extra pages added here. Perhaps what matters is that I couldn't tell you for sure, because nothing here seems obviously spliced in without regard to the original material, like, say, the ridiculous later scenes that were added to 'The Madmen of Mandoras' to become 'They Saved Hitler's Brain' for television. It reads to me like one coherent story that was always meant to be this way.

West Abbey is "a less-than affluent area" on the edge of Mechanika City. In other words, a slum. A young child of indeterminate gender wakes up attached to a complex device that's connected to what looks like a robot teddy bear, while adult hands scrawl something in blood on his or her forehead. It's wonderful imagery to kick off a story and most readers should be caught up in the mystery, because the source mythology isn't used that often. Those of us who have experienced it elsewhere already know where it's going, but it's still handled very well indeed.

Back at the Thomsen house, Lady Mechanika makes tea for Winifred, while her father, inventor Archibald Lewis, is passed out on a couch. After the first volume, I wondered which, if any, of the many fascinating characters would return as regulars and it seems like it's going to be this pair. While there are details here and there that point towards Lady Mechanika's mysterious past, it seems that we're getting new stories that stand entirely alone. Maybe, over time, those details will add up enough to suggest a way forward to investigating that past further, but, right now, it seems like that's a long way away.

So we're looking at "secret mechanical experiments and murder", as the papers phrase it, and, of course, Lady Mechanika promptly investigates with Mr. Lewis in tow. West Abbey is so rough that, as they enter it, the South Side Sloggers offer to protect them. Lady Mechanika punches their leader unconscious and that's enough of that. It probably doesn't hurt to remind us that a lithe and elegant young lady isn't necessarily as helpless as the era might have deemed.

They find a toymaker's laboratory but also Detective Inspector Singh, who's investigating on a more official basis and is unusually accommodating in allowing them to proceed. He's almost a textbook for tall, dark and handsome and he broods wonderfully, which works perfectly within the visual style of these books. There's certainly action here, but most of these panels are very static, drawn at the point a bunch of characters are standing around doing whatever, carefully posed, of course, but static nonetheless. Lady Mechanika is a gift for an artist to draw like that and Singh even more so.

It seems that there are multiple victims, all of them boys and all with mysterious marks in blood on their foreheads. It's not their blood and the marks are written in Hebrew. Georgie, who's an orphan staying with the kindly pawnbroker, Mr. Reznik, stole a Jewish amulet from the Toy Man, who's well known to the kids—it's a kamea, says Rebbe Ephraim at the Great Synagogue. What's more, Mr. Lewis finds a tiny scroll in the mouth one of the clockwork dolls found with the bodies; it carries a single Jewish word: "met", meaning "death".

And so we're set for a mystery grounded in Jewish mythology, though M. M. Chen, returning as the writer of this two issue story, is careful to shift any villainy from the Jewish faith to a secret renegade sect called the Servants of Moloch. They aren't Jewish, we're told, but they subverted Judaism to their own ends, appropriating and twisting it. This admirable cultural diversity, with a Jewish backdrop and an Indian policeman—presumably Sikh, given his name, even if he wears no turban—is continued with the joyous location that is the toy shop of Jiang, a diminutive but incredibly talented Chinese artisan. He made the clockwork dolls they found.

As you can imagine, there's serious opportunity here for the artists and Joe Benítez, creator of the series, and Martin Montiel, have plenty of fun exploring that. Never mind the characters, a whole gallery of them who influenced the costuming of many steampunks over the years, I love what they do with less animate objects. Jiang's toy shop is gorgeous but there's a massive clock on his wall that serves as a fantastic centerpiece. Most people would consider the double-page spread of a single character during the finalé the showcase image, and it's wonderful, but I'd go for smaller images myself, single page or smaller.

There's a horrific one of a girl—maybe a boy with long hair—kneeling in contemplation of new mechanical arms against the memory of being limbless. It's brown, as you might expect for any steampunk comic, but deeply infused with red. It's a powerfully layered image taking up three quarters of a page. Jiang's toy shop is of similar size, but with the layers replaced by depth, the admirable detail being immersive. There's another panel of around the same size featuring an animated clockwork doll confined within an ornate birdcage, with a shadowy claw reaching for it, surely with no good intent. Mr. Lewis's steam-powered helicopter car is damn cool, too!

This is a short story and a relatively predictable one if everything I've said here conjures up one particular word for you. However, it's written strongly if simply, with an admirable diversity for a backdrop, and the art is as immersive as we might expect for this series. There are few comics that unfold with imagery this detailed, but that plays well in steampunk with its fetish for pride of creation. 'The Tablet of Destinies' may have been a far more expansive story that knew how to sprawl without losing itself, but 'The Lost Boys of West Abbey' is a short but perfectly formed little story that's as long as it needs to be. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by M. M. Chen click here
For more titles by Joe Benítez click here
For more titles by Martin Montiel click here
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For more titles by Beth Sotelo click here