Red Circle: The Shield #1

August 30, 2009

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: The Shield

How Joe Higgins became the Shield – and what does he have to do with the other Red Circle heroes?

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: Scott McDaniel
Inks: Andy Owens
Last Page Art: Tom Derenick & Bill Sienkiewicz
Colors: Tom Chu
Letters: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Joey Cavalieri
Cover Art: Jesus Saiz
Publisher: DC Comics

The Red Circle closes with the introduction of the Shield. Lt. Joe Higgins, a soldier stationed in Afghanistan, is nearly killed while trying to save one of his comrades. His injuries are so severe his only chance at survival is to undergo a process that will transform him from being an American fighting machine to the greatest American fighting machine.

I’ve always felt the Shield is undervalued in comic history. True, Captain America is the greatest flag-draped superhero of them all, but most people tend to forget that the original Shield was the first, so while there are similarities between his tale and Cap’s, you can hardly call him a rip-off. The twist in this incarnation of the Shield is a pretty clever one, something that sets the new Joe Higgins apart from any of the characters who have used this name in the past, while still keeping him as a spiritual successor. There’s also plenty left unresolved, plenty to build on in the new ongoing series, which is nice to see. This is a worthy version of a classic character… and I will admit, I’m glad to see his uniform, unlike the other Red Circle heroes, remained relatively unchanged. It’s just too classic to start mucking around with.

Scott McDaniel does the art here, and he does okay. While he’s certainly more suited for a book like this one than the cosmic stuff he dabbles in from time to time, something about his Shield looks a little off – he’s kind of squat, almost squished, and that’s just weird to me. It looked a little bit too funky.

It’s a good launch for the character, and it ties off this month of one-shots pretty well. I’ll be anxious to see what the new creators do when the ongoing series launches soon.

Rating: 8/10

The OMAC Project #2

May 22, 2005

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: There is No I in Team

The truth about Brother comes out – and Max makes his next move.

Writer: Greg Rucka
Art: Jesus Saiz
Colors: Hi-Fi Design
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Joan Hilty
Cover Art: Ladronn
Publisher: DC Comics

This is going to be one of those issues that’s particularly difficult to review, because virtually everything falls under spoiler territory. Here’s what I suppose I can tell you – still reeling from the events of Identity Crisis, we learn in this issue that Batman knew what the Justice League did to his memory much earlier than we suspected. He confronts Superman, Wonder Woman and Booster Gold, but besides this knowledge he knows something else they don’t – that Blue Beetle is dead.

And the reason he knows is because Sasha Bordeaux defied Max Lord and sent him a pair of shattered goggles. This issue, Max grows to suspect a leak in the organization, and takes some drastic measures to deal with it. Meanwhile, the OMAC robots continue their mission of destruction.

Out of the four Infinite Crisis series, this seems to be the one most directly connected to what’s done before, drawing on both Identity Crisis and DC Countdown to create drama, as well as creating cracks between the “big three” heroes of the DCU. People who were unhappy with the focus on Sasha last issue will be more satisfied with this book – the focus shifts more towards the heroes, and when Sasha does show up, we get to learn a bit more about her, including a rather surprising last sequence.

The writing on this issue is top-notch. The artwork, not so much. I’m not really a fan of Jesus Saiz – while the layout and designs are fine, the pages are inked a bit too heavily, and as a result, the book has a very flat look. The artwork is helped considerably by the colors – Hi-Fi manages to generate a lot of depth and clarity that the linework doesn’t lend itself to.

All of the Crisis spinoffs have been enjoyable so far, but this one definitely feels like the most relevant. This issue only intensifies that gut feeling.

Rating: 8/10

DC Countdown #1

March 28, 2005

Quick Rating: Incredible
Title: Countdown to Infinite Crisis

Someone has collected information on the greatest heroes in the world – and it’s up to one of the least grandiose to unravel the mystery.

Writers: Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka & Judd Winick
Pencils: Rags Morales, Ed Benes, Jesus Saiz, Ivan Reis & Phil Jimenez
Inks: Michael Bair, Ed Benes, Jimmy Palmiotti, Marc Campos & Andy Lanning
Colors: Moose Baumann, Hi-Fi, Paul Mounts, Guy Major & Steve Firchow
Letters: Nick J. Napolitano
Editor: Dan Didio
Cover Art: Jim Lee & Alex Ross
Publisher: DC Comics

When I reviewed Identity Crisis, particularly the first and last issues of that miniseries, I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut by a mule. The story told in that miniseries was heartbreaking, stomach-wrenching and emotionally exhausting, while still being one of the best stories I’ve read in years.

Reading this special makes the gut feeling from that comic feel like a minor stomach flu.

This issue is all spoiler, and there’s almost nothing I can say without tipping the hand of the writers. Someone has gathered information on DC’s greatest heroes. Who, how and for what purpose is something that I honestly, until I turned that page, never saw coming, but unlike the identity of the Identity Crisis murderer, this one wasn’t really that big a stretch to accept. It almost felt poetic, like this was something that’s been in the works for decades instead of just the last few years.

And after reading this, there can be absolutely no doubt that this title has been meticulously planned out over the last few years. There are threads picked up on this book from titles as disparate as Batman, Superman/Batman, Adam Strange and Birds of Prey, and of course, the entire issue hangs heavily under the spectre of Identity Crisis, but one who hasn’t read those respective series will be able to understand this book without problem. Furthermore, the groundwork is laid very neatly for the four miniseries that will lead into Infinite Crisis – those being The Omac Project, Villains United, Day of Vengeance and The Rann/Thanagar War.

This book has an all-star team of artists doing the work. Each of the pencilers, from Identity Crisis’s Rags Morales on down, is doing top-notch work, and considering that each artist/inker team uses a different colorist, it’s even more incredible how neat and uniform this issue looks.

I’m still in shock. My stomach is in knots as a write this, because while I felt the last page of this issue coming from the very beginning, it still hit me like a Mack truck.

Make no mistake, friends. Identity Crisis was a warm-up.

And this is just the first round.

There’s a hell of a long way to go. And I’m starting to feel that getting there may produce some of the greatest comic book stories I’ve ever read.

Rating: 10/10

The Red Circle: Inferno #1

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Inferno

A man with no memory finds himself charged with power.

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Art: Greg Scott
Art (Final Page): Roger Robinson, Hilary Barta & Guy Major
Colors: Art Lyon
Letters: Steve Wands
Editor: Joey Cavalieri
Cover Art: Jesus Saiz
Publisher: DC Comics

Following the destruction of a cruise liner in San Francisco bay, Dr. Robert Dickering (a.k.a. the Hangman) finds himself caring for one survivor – a man with no memory, but who has provided the only clue to the investigation in the form of a name he whispered while still dazed. When someone tries to kill the patient, he undergoes a transformation into another man entirely – a man with a much more fiery personality.

Like he did with Hangman, J. Michael Straczynski has really taken the old Inferno character and done something very different, amplifying his powers and keeping little except the color scheme and the torch symbol, which in this case is reduced to an icon on a chain. It’s possible that when this character’s mysterious past is delved into more we’ll see parallels to the original character (a would-be villain turned to the path of good by an encounter with Steel Sterling), but even if it’s something totally different, I don’t anticipate it being a problem. So far, Straczynski has done a good job of crafting tales for these heroes that introduces them as though they were brand-new. He hasn’t gotten too heavily into the DC Universe, but I imagine that’s something that’s being saved for the two ongoing series that will spin out of these one-shots.

Greg Scott’s art seems like a good fit for this rather rough character. He has a gritty style that harkens back to the work Michael Lark did on Gotham Central, and while this book is far from a procedural, the style seems appropriate.

I like the feel that we’re building towards something, that it’s not just a coincidence these four heroes are rising to prominence at the same time, but that there’s a logic to it. It’s something I dare say is necessary for a project of this nature. For what we’ve gotten so far, I like it.

Rating: 7/10