"Martyrs Part 1 of 4"
Writer: Aron Eli Coleite
Artists: Tyler Kirkham (p), Rob Hunter and Matt Banning (i)
Publisher: Image Comics/Top Cow
Plot: After a suicide bomber destroys a large portion of Chicago, V.I.C.E. (Violent Incident Control Enforcement) begins an investigation that leads them to another bomber in Atlanta, Georgia.
Commentary: Here are the top five phrases I could use as a lead for this review if I felt like being "witty":
Number Five: "Wow, I didn't know they made comics like this anymore."
Number Four: "Somebody put their Rob Liefeld into my Top Cow."
Number Three: "You mean acronyms like V.I.C.E. didn't go out along with the Mutant Liberation Front?"
Number Two: "Hey, a white haired man in a suit. Now this is the Image I remember."
Number One: "Hey, the nineties called. They want their team book back."
Can I get a bwa-ha-ha?
No? All right, I'll leave the jokes to the professionals and get back to reviewing the book.
Here's the deal; I had a serious love/hate relationship with this book. On one hand, I saw it as a legitimate attempt to do an action packed team book with brooding characters and sixteen different types of hardware. On the other hand, this book made me feel like I had jumped in my "Way Back Machine" and picked up something that Image would have published over ten years ago. I honestly felt that I had pulled this book out of the fifty cent box rather than something that was only a month or so old.
That is not to say that I didn't like the book. I did. It was a lot of fun, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The book had the look and feel of a direct-to-video (or DVD I guess) action flick and I could totally see Casper Van Dien as Swat. There was a lot of tough talk and a really nifty explosion. V.I.C.E. as a team was paper thin, but Coleite made up for it by establishing Beck as a character that, as the new kid on the team, was the perfect candidate to serve as the audience's "in" to the series. His background was interesting, though you would have thought that someone with a quasi-criminal background would have had a stronger stomach than Beck did at the beginning of the issue.
The use and explanation of the powers the team possess was interesting as well. Coleite seemed to be going for a sense of the real with they way the different abilities were explained, and nothing was too out there. What I enjoyed about this is that Coleite didn't try to shove the supposed realism down our throats. It was very natural and made for one of the better parts of the series.
The art, while a little stiff in places, was sound. I may have poked fun at this book by comparing it to the work produced during the first wave of Image Comics back in 1992, but only to be what I refer to as "funny." Tyler Kirkham put a lot of detail into his work, and there was some strong storytelling in his pages. I'm not too keen on the outfits he has the team wearing, but that is a minor quibble. The art was loud and exciting and was a perfect match for the story.
In The End: This was a fun read. Coleite has put together an interesting cast and hopefully they will be fleshed out a little more. I like Beck and think that this was one of the better character set ups that I have read in some time. Kirkham, along with Hunter and Banning (which sounds vaguely like a law firm), turned in some great art, and you can really tell this is a Top Cow book. If the creative staff can find a better balance between the atmosphere and character, this could turn out to be a fantastic series. Despite the fact that this isn't my normal thing as far as comic reading is concerned, I'm going to see the story through and follow where Coleite and crew take it.
What did you think of this book?
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