No Reading, Just Reacher

 

My reading plans for this week took a bit of a hit after I (belatedly) started watching Reacher on Prime Video and was instantly hooked.

I've now binged the first three series and the available episodes of the current season, which started 10 days ago.

Jack Reacher is a former special investigator for the military police who now wanders America getting drawn into resolving sticky situations. Built like a brick outhouse, in Dungeons & Dragons terms Reacher has no dump stat.

Essentially a superhero (antihero?) without a costume or powers, Reacher is played by Alan Ritchson, who has form in that genre having portrayed Aquaman in Smallville and Hawk in Titans.

Reacher's - usually ultraviolent - extralegal solutions to problems are a cross between Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan, Robert E Howard's Conan The Barbarian, and The Punisher, aided by the investigative chops of Batman.

Occasionally cheesy, but more often darkly humorous (thanks in large part to Ritchson's deadpan performance) or simply dark (it can go places some people might be uncomfortable with), the show has turned out to be of a modern pulp masterpiece, an engrossing thriller with a highly charismatic lead and well-structured mysteries.

The creation of author Lee Child, there are over 30 novels (and counting) in the series. Given that each season of the Prime Video show is based on a single book, that's a lot of material to keep this show going.

For those, as I was, not au fait with Reacher, here's the trailer for the first season:

And, coincidentally, just as I've binged every episode of Reacher, Prime Video has dropped a trailer for a spin-off show, focussing on the amazing character, Neagly, Reacher's only real friend and former army buddy who now occasionally helps him out as a private investigator.

I can't think of a better way to expand this "universe" as Maria Sten's hypercool performance as Frances Neagley stands shoulder-to-shoulder (not literally) with Ritchson's Reacher whenever she makes a welcome appearance in the mother show.

Neagley debuts on Prime Video on September 16 on ‪Prime Video‬.

Now that I've caught up with Reacher, I can resume my reading regime. I'm still only half-way through the excellent Viking horror Draugr and I have a stack of new comics that were delivered from Paradox the other day.

Latest shipment of new comic books