I Kill Giants is on the short list of comics that have made me cry. That balance between the absurd and the concrete from Joe Kelly’s characters and Ken Niimura’s art helped to create this sense of reality that felt heightened throughout the series’ run. The exaggerations are what made it more grounded and, as a result, created a deep, resonating impact with its final few issues. And, for the first time in over a decade, Kelly and Niimura have collaborated again on another kind of story in their series Immortal Sergeant.

Jim Sargent is retiring from the force soon. After 45 years, he has to hang it up. But he’s an old kind of detective on the force—the kind more at-home in 50s pulps or 70s crime films. He’s brazen, he’s loudmouthed, and he’s kind of a dick—he’s also haunted by a case from 35 years ago and has just received the first clue to enacting some kind of justice. Watching a man walk with community service after murdering his own daughter will jade a man in some ways. But when his son, Michael, rides along to help uncover this strand of a clue to help give the case some closure, things go awry. Not wanting to be an accessory to murder, Michael does what he can to waylay the journey or convince his dad to reconsider his plans. And it’s only when Michael is in the hospital and Sargent is looking the man he’s been pursuing all this time in the eyes can he make his final decision.

As a medium, comics do character studies very well, and Kelly and Niimura take full advantage of that. It isn’t enough to simply watch a character like Jim Sargent hard-boil his way through every encounter put in front of him, we have to see the narrative foil in Michael along with that. The perspective that Michael gives to every moment—a sensitivity in comparison to the brash and the modern in contrast to the “good ol’ days” of his father’s time. The pair change each other as much as the story unfolding changes Sarge’s own ideas of who he is as an old cop. For the first time, he’s able to see what he looks like on the outside when encountering another detective far outside his jurisdiction—someone who reminds him too much of himself and how he’s been for the past few decades.

Immortal Sergeant is multiple stories. It’s an old cop getting revenge. It’s a man fighting back against his retirement. It’s a father and son bonding for the first time. It’s how people deal with trauma. It’s a road trip. Kelly and Niimura know how to connect all of these disparate elements in nine issues while maintaining that sense of oddity about the entire thing. Because it’s in that contrast that their stories feel all the more human. Even the most devastating moments of someone’s life still has a clown nose on it. 

Get excited. Get driving.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.