The central story of The Fade Out centers around 1940s Hollywood and a murder of a starlet covered up as a suicide. Act One — issues 1-4, out now in trade — beautifully set up the players. Issue 5 is the start to Act Two. Now that the stage has been set, how will these characters move forward?

This issue puts blacklisted screenwriter Gil Mason more central. Most of the story so far has centered around his writing “partner” Charlie Parish, with issue 3 being the first departure from that and this issue promising not to be the last. As Gil thinks to himself, he is always choosing to put himself in the wrong places all the time. This time, he sees the co-founder of the studio acting inappropriately, which prompts the head of studio security to take him for a car ride.

Recently at his spotlight forum at WonderCon, Ed Brubaker talked about how he can't seem to cut down his narration, that there always seems to be too much of it. In this issue, it almost seems he made a point to write as much narration as he can. He never reaches Chris Claremont level, but it's more than typical.

That's not always a bad thing; he seems to perfectly balance the narration to project the noir vibe of the era. True to form, Sean Phillips's art continues to be impressive. This issue is a nice visual change of pace, with a majority of the story taking place in and around a ranch owned by the previously mentioned co-founder instead of the usual busy cityscape.

Brubaker also noted at WonderCon that this has been his and Phillips's most successful venture yet, despite its seeming lack of commercial value. This is the first issue where that pessimism seemed even somewhat valid. I contemplated giving this issue 4.5 stars, but I decided that the extra half star would really be due to the previous four issues. As a standalone, this one is still great, but it's more preparation for what's to come than a story in itself.