Southland Tales: Two Roads Diverge is very much an idea whose time is now. It's 85 pages are loaded with intrigue and by the book mystery. It didn't strike me as a particularly original piece of imagineering, but it does drip potential. Fortunio Balducci is just the kind of low life with an eye for the main chance, that thrives in a shattered society, Boxer Santaros, dumb as man can come to start with, looks like an idea waiting to happen, and Krysta Now is revealed to be far more intelligent than her image would suggest. We're shown hints that powerful players are aware of Santaros's entry into this reality, and the ensemble effect is that nothing is destined to remain quite the way it seems. In the flesh, it may prove difficult for the Rock to convince an audience that he is an amnesiac traveller in time, or the former Buffy to make us believe she is a porn starlet. But on the comic book page, they worked well enough for me to keep a look out for the next two titles, Book II: Fingerprints and Book III: The Mechanicals. The biggest let down here is Brett Weldele's rather basic, scratchy artwork. Those who prefer style over realism in their comic book artists may find it more to their taste, but for me the lack of sharp definition lessened the impact of the text. Overall, though, this is a work that has just enough going for it to push it above the mainstream.