Wildguard: Insider #1

May 2, 2008

Wildguard: Insider #1 (Image Comics)
By Todd Nauck, Steven Sanchez & Justin Peterson

Man it’s been way too long since we got a Wildguard comic from Todd Nauck. For those who haven’t read any of the previous miniseries or specials, Wildguard is a superhero team assembled via reality show, voted in by viewers like American Idol. The difference between Wildguard and American Idol is that the Wildguard characters are actually interesting. this miniseries serves to reprint the webcomics Nauck posted online some time ago, but for fans who already read those strips, there’s new stuff too. The book opens with a solo tale of Red Rover, in which we see an interesting change for our hero. The webstrips presented here pick up right at the end of the first Wildguard series, with a publicity agent who thinks the new team is doomed and six heroes who have to get used to working together. What’s more, the big guns don’t really want much to do with them. To round out the book, we get two “Where Are They Now?” stories featuring heroes who didn’t make the cut, including a rather bleak story of Mover and Shaker and a far more lighthearted tale with Adhesor. The book is filled out with lots of profiles of the dozens of characters Nauck created for the title. This is a really nice introduction to one of the best new superhero concepts in recent years, as well as one of the least-appreciated.
Rating: 7/10