Sex hit a high note last month with an expanded look at the past of all the major players with plenty of action. Issue #10 is a return to the business at hand and a deliberate slow pace moving forward.

Official description from IMAGE:
SEX goes global! Simon Cooke is stalked! Larry gets laid! Keenan seeds his future! Annabelle keeps it together! The Prank Addict is run down! Bring the noise! Bring the pain! Bring your money and buy more SEX!

Not every issue of a series needs to be full of action and sex to be interesting and writer Joe Casey brings back the corporate progression Simon Cooke is trying to get a handle over. Seems like everyone is back to business. The opening of Cooke executive Larry finally able to have a fun and release sets up the sex aspect and Simon still lingers in a holding pattern except where self-pleasure is involved. He is more focused on being an active corporate leader rather than one seemingly forced into it.

The majority of the issue focuses on Cooke’s business and all the minutiae surrounding it. Meetings with multiple departments, brokering a deal between Cooke’s company and Kansei and dodging media requests. The ball really starts rolling in the last third of the book when Annabelle has a momentary flash on how her pervious alter-ego would handle an unhappy customer and the Prank Addict gets himself into a world of hurt.

Piotr Kowalski’s work continues to be consistently good with plenty of detail and slick gloss for the corporate settings of Saturn City and the dark grit for the underbelly. He handles both with ease and balances what should feel distant and sterile with the extremely intimate with equal skill.

The Alpha Brothers are back in business as well which sets a lot of action off behind the scenes. Keenan is the shocker of the book when his story is set on course for a fall back to the past and how it’s discovered is equally as surprising. Finally, even though the Prank Addict should be universally viewed as a complete scumbag you might feel a little sorry for him once you find out what he has to face which is both known and deeply frightening.

Sex has been a series of peaks and valleys and I’m sure that’s just the way Casey likes it. This issue was missing the underlying deep seated need for former heroes to recapture their glory but it looks like it’s setting up to be a new direction with familiar motivations. The issue is a valley among the peaks but still a more than worthy addition to the overall story. Sex continues to keep you guessing at what it’s got up it’s sleeve next and reveals it all in slow painstaking style but worth the tension and anticipation.

3.5/5