George R.R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sins Of The Father by Melinda M. Snodgrass, and art by Michael Komarck and Elizabeth Leggett (book review).
Back in 2022, the ‘Wild Cards’ reality moved back to its original American publishers, Bantam Books. One of the first releases was a graphic novel, the long-titled ‘George R.R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sins Of The Father’ by Melinda M. Snodgrass and art by Michael Komarck and Elizabeth Leggett. This isn’t the first time the Wild Cards have appeared in comic book format. Three mini-series by my count and rarely with the contribution of the original authors, so this looks like their second graphic novel. Damn! It’s time to find another one.
Don’t look at the cover of this book and think that is representative of the art inside the covers. It has a darker palette, and the art is photo-realistic, especially of the more human-looking characters and much more film noir.
Detective Francis Xavier Black, nicknamed ‘Franny’ by his colleagues, is one of the few Nats or Naturals at Fort Freak police station in Jokertown in New York. The discovery of a dead body with his skeleton missing makes him check for earlier cases, discovering four more back in his father’s time in the force, written off as black queens— that is, people infected by the wild card and dying after mutating. Over the period of this story, Black becomes disillusioned by his father’s reputation when in charge.
While this is going on, Black finds himself having to go undercover to get inside a Russian consortium working in Jokertown to bring them down with the ace cop Detective Thomas Driscoll, aka Tabby, as his backup when he’s in cat-form. Things take a turn for the worse when he suffers a blow and must return to uniform.
He’s still unravelling the earlier murder and looking for the Jokers Wild nightclub, along with another police officer and ace, Rikki Michaelson. Quite what her ace is apart from a narrow waist isn’t described in the story, but looking her up, she has the attributes of a hare and a rare birth from jokers that survived.
The rest is a spoiler. This is also one of the odd occasions that I had to read this graphic novel a second time to figure out who the murderer is. It’s shown, but the actual pages don’t have the necessary impact or give the killer a name, let alone why. I suspect had Snodgrass done this story purely as wordage, she would have covered that better, so it’s more a problem of format and pace. When there is so much covered in visuals, it’s often easy not to give characters names, and sometimes the contrasts between the characters and looks aren’t always picked up on.
Background detail is fun, with a lot of recognisable Jokertown characters making an appearance. I like the homage to now-deceased Wild Cards writers as IRS personnel. The ‘Wild Cards’ mosaic is effective as other writers’ characters cross into other stories, which is acknowledged here. Don’t overlook this if you’re not a fan of graphic novels. We’re still waiting to see if the next ‘Wild Cards’ novel acknowledges this story. Just be careful now to be invited to Jokers Wild. You might not like the experience.
GF Willmetts
April 2025
(pub: Bantam Books, 2023. Page graphic novel hardback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-0-8041-7710-8).
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