Review by Frank Plowright

Nola’s first chapter introduces us to two women of that name in New Orleans, in past and present. The Nola in the past is a beautiful young woman who lives with her mother in a city that’s not been flooded. The Nola in the present conceals her face in a scarf, has no qualms about killing police, and lives in a flooded city. How one became the other is revealed in the opening chapter.

Film maker Chris Gorak supplies a plot scripted by Pierluigi Cothran in which the devastation of the 2005 New Orleans flood has a major effect on the city, represented in microcosm by Nola. It’s a character-based crime story with the flooded city a constant background.

This is well handled by artist Damien Couceiro who supplies two different styles of background. There’s the vibrant old city before the destruction and the flooded ruins afterwards. Nola herself personifies the contrast via her two identities, having been badly burned and left for dead just before the flooding began. As seen on the sample art, Couceiro conceives a distinctive look for the present day Nola, almost costuming her via green hood and surgical mask, and via patches of black ink supplies a noir look to the entire story.

Revenge is Nola’s primary motivation, and that’s easily understood. Less easily understood are the reasons for her being left the way she was before the flood, although charitably, panic can be considered. A clever aspect of incorporating the flood, though, is what was so memorably seen on the Treme TV series. Police accountability was almost zero, a lot of dark deeds happened in the chaos, and the writers have Nola use that well.

Where the plot weakens slightly is by it becoming something more than a matter of revenge. Along the way Nola is given clues as to what might have happened to her missing father. The impression is of Gorak intending Nola as the plot for a film, which might have needed something more to occupy ninety minutes, and adapting that to comics overcomplicates a viable thriller. It does lead to a tense ending, but something similar could have been more simply arranged.

That’s not to say Nola is a disappointment. From the mood to the proactive lead character and a good supporting cast it supplies the necessary thrills.