Hendricks, Robert – The Washington Tragedy #2

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The Washington Tragedy #2

Robert reminded me in the letter that came with this comic that I should probably re-read the first issue again before getting into that, which was sound advice, but clearly demonstrated that my “let the reviewed comics pile up as they may” brand of organizing is not as common as I might have thought. I’m sure that first issue is around here somewhere, but narrowing that down would take some time. Anyway, he included a synopsis at the start of the comic, so you can get the gist of the first issue there. To recap, in case you’re reading the review for the second issue of a two part series, there was a Congressman in the 1850’s named Dan Sickles. Phillip Barton Key was the district attorney of Washington D.C. and was quite the womanizer, and his list of conquests included Dan’s wife Teresa. Hilariously, Dan also had plenty of infidelities, but this happened in the 1850’s, when women were just barely regarded as people in the eyes of the law. Anyway, this issue starts with Dan just finding out about this affair and having a long and heated conversation with his wife. He eventually gets her to write out a signed confession detailing exactly what happened, and the next day (while he’s going over his options with a friend) he notices Phillip across the street from his house, trying to give the signal to Teresa to come over. This naturally sends Dan into a rage, he grabs a few pistols from his house and, well, you can probably guess what happens from there. Still, Robert does a great job of not shying away from anything, using eyewitness accounts (as the confrontation happened on a busy street) to show just how brutal it was. I’ll leave the winner of the confrontation a mystery, but the rest of the comic details the trial that happened as the result of the murder, and the unique alibi that the defense chose to try out for their client. The epilogue was also nicely done, as I wondered what happened to ____ after the last page of the comic. So overall I’d say that while I thoroughly enjoy Robert’s Stranger 2 Stranger series, he could clearly put out some quality historical comics too whenever the mood strikes him. $5