So, once again we have a hard-boiled guy looking to save a sexy dame, but despite the basic similarity "Hell and Back" comes across a bit differently from Miller's previous graphic novels in the series. It is not just that Wallace has that mop of hair hanging in this face, but that for the most part Miller has cleared the stage of a lot of the familiar characters. The only previous "Sin City" book you need to have read is the previous one, "Booze, Broads, & Bullets," so that when Delia shows up with her blue eyes and blue bodice you know this is not a good sign. Miller is sparse with introducing color into the black & white world of "Sin City," but Delia's blue is far and away the most effective use of color. But the orange of leopard skinned Mariah makes me think maybe the color pink does not occupy the other end of the spectrum here.

"Sin City" actually breaks into full color at one point, when Wallace gets injected with a hallucinogenic drug and starts freaking out. Comic book fans will spot the likes of Lone Wolf & Cub, Captain America, Hagar the Horrible, and the Cat in the Hat as Wallace totally trips out and tries to find the truth in the illusions. Actually, he does a pretty good job of it. Artistically Miller also plays with white a lot more in this one than he did in most of the previous books, although apparently just to be different rather than to any specific effect. Then again, Miller is over a thousand pages into his comic book noir and how many different ways can the guy draw play and white pages?

I know that with Book 7 we now have a complete set of "Sin City" graphic novels. You can tell because when you put the seven books side-by-side on the shelf the bindings form a picture of Nancy. But I would hate to think this is the last "Sin City" from Miller because it does not provide a big finish. Since Miller provided the definitive big finish with "The Dark Knight Returns" we have reason to hope for something similar with his own creation, but this is not it. Wallace is almost too competent of a hero compared to Marv and Dwight, especially with the support group he has in place, but Esther being the least interesting damsel in distress to date helps take this one down a notch as well. Consequently, "Hell and Back" is good but not great, and with Miller that always ends up being something of a disappointment.

The word was that this was going to be part of the "Sin City" movie, with Johnny Depp as Wallace (he was also supposed to be Robert Rodriguez's first choice for Jackie Boy), but who wants to see a "Sin City" movie with an intermission or cut in two parts like "Kill Bill"? I do not know if any or all of these rumors are true, but trying to think of Wallace as being Johnny Depp while I read "Hell and Back" did not quite work, more in terms of the body type pulling off all of Wallace's stunts than the longhaired look, because obviously Depp can pull that off.