Torso by Brian Michael Bendis (author of Jinxand Powersand half of the Marvel Universe) worked with artist Marc Andreyko to present a little known historical story of Eliot Ness (post Al Capone) and a serial killer. Eliot Ness and his band of Untouchables cleaned up Chicago Police and dismantled Al Capone’s mob. But what would Ness do for an encore? He went to Cleveland to clean up the police and help restore order to the city. But right as he started, a serial killer showed up it the city. Torso is Bendis’ last non-superhero work and one of his best.

Eliot Ness moved from Chicago to Cleveland, after finishing convicting Al Capone, and took on the title of Public Safety Director. This role would allow Ness to have authority over both the police and fire departments. The hiring was a coup for Cleveland which had been decimated by the Great Depression. While Ness started cleaning up the police department and going after local mobsters, a series of grisley murders started happening. Ness attempted to solve the crime, but the actions he took to help ended up contributing to the end of his detective future.

Bendis gets all the details right and there is impressive research with clips from actual newspapers from the time. The story does a great job at showing Ness confident that he could do for Cleveland what he did for Chicago and then watching him slowly disintegrate while being unable to solve the murders. The ending is pure speculation focusing on one of the two main suspects, who was committed to an asylum soon after the last murder.

This is a great comic to get non-comic book fans interested in. It’s about an mostly unknown, but true history of a famous person after their most famous case. And it shows how well Bendis can do mystery stories for those of you who are only familiar with his super-hero works. Highly recommended.