Warren Ellis returns to his Wildstorm playground with Promethea's J.H. Williams III with Desolation Jones, about an ex-English spook living in LA as a private detective looking for Hitler porn. And if that's not warning enough, prepare yourself for another crazy Ellis story full of strange characters, weird science, and f***ed-up scenarios.

Michael Jones doesn't sleep all that often. It's a side-effect of the Desolation Test he went through while working for MI6. He takes pills to keep from dreaming when he does sleep. And he really doesn't like the sun. Too bad for him he lives in sunny Los Angeles now, working as a private detective. He gets his jobs from Jeronimus, an ex-C.I.A. agent who only eats raw Montana beef four times a year in rather large quantities. Jones' driver around L.A. is Robina, another ex-spook of some sort who dresses like a riot grrl. Los Angeles itself, which Jones describes as a "supermodern space - a place you don't stop in," is home to many, many ex-intelligence agents who do in fact have to stop in this place. They have all been confined to L.A. by the higher authorities for one reason or another. An "open prison for ex-members of the intelligence community." Jones takes a job from the Colonel, an aged "soldier and world-class sexual adventurer." He's missing Hitler's home-made pornography and wants Jones to find it. And this is merely the first half of the book.

Ellis' head being crammed with so many crazy ideas is both a blessing and a curse. Every story he writes (and this one is no different) is packed with so much, that a reader may find himself lost at any given moment. But if you do miss something, there is always something else there to take your mind off of it. And opening a comic with a metropolitan study of Los Angeles is ballsy and inspired, as well as insane. But hey, that's Ellis' MO. Why start a comic with a super-hero fistfight when you can start it with a social studies report.

J.H. Williams III, known for being able to draw anything and everything in any and every given style in Alan Moore's Promethea, returns here somewhat subdued. All of his pages, with the exception of a very few, are regular

pages with a regualr amount of square panels within which lie comic book art you've seen many times before. And what makes that art so mundane is when Williams draws to his capability. Jones' dreams and visions, at the beginning and end of the comic, respectively, remind us of how great Wiliams can be. Another awesome sequence is Jones' fight with Wood. This is how Williams composes a page. But I am reminded that Williams also started slowly on Promethea, so I really ought to just wait.

If your idea of a good time is spandex and fisticuffs, stear clear of this book. But if you have enjoyed anything by

Warren Ellis ever (even Transmetropolitan, God save your soul), then you're sure to love this. You will be disappointed by J.H. Williams III's art, as I was, but I'm sure it'll pick up as the series progresses. Just remember, nobody does packed-to-the-gills wacko like Ellis.