Plot: NOW tells the story of a secret group called "The Third Army" made up of people called "the Lonely Ones." We find all this out through the life and times of Max, whose family (and thus himself included) is tied to a great mythical battle of good and evil that rages on both in the real world, and on other planes.
The story starts in 1953, jumps to 1961, then the present. We first meet Max's father, then Max as a boy, Max as a team, and finally Max's little group in the present. Funny enough the Third Army is fighting a very public marketing war of sorts against a very material threat called the New World Order. This isn't some shadow government conspiracy because in this comic the NWO is a public movement to spread democracy around the world.

Comments: New World Order, a new series from Shadowline, explores lots of weird semi-sci-fi concepts you'd except in the X-Files or a similar exploration of contemporary conspiracy theories and occultism. I commend the creators for the way they handle the three time lines in this story. Although I think it opens abruptly with a somewhat clichéd and vague chase scene which comes off a little too confident for the art depicting it.

I'm not familiar with De Luca's work, but often the shading and line work is awkward making his characters appear somewhat plastic and unnatural. That being said he has a good sense of layout for this type of story and uses appropriate stock backgrounds. And lest I forget to mention an appearance of Sean Connery as the Director of Homeland Security. I enjoyed the art, but I didn't think it was as tight as it could be. After reviewing a little bit of De Luca's art using that wonderful tool, the Internet, I feel more confident of my original assessment that the problem here is in the lines and the shades. It's loose compared to a lot of the work he displays on his website. I'm not going to say too much about this because it doesn't detract from the book.

Over all it's pretty fun. I like the jumps in time because each one tells us just a little bit more about the overall story, while not enough to spoil the next step in time. Higuera and De Luca are telling a pretty interesting story in a pretty interesting way, but we'll have to wait for future issues to see if they continue this jumping around time, or decide to stick in the present. We'll see.

Final Word: Beginnings are tough. Middles and endings are tough too, but I give a series the benefit of the doubt on its first issue. New World Order has an enjoyable twist on an old motif that felt better the further I got into the reading. This story seemed to fall somewhere in the middle. The website looks pretty interesting and I'd recommend people with general interests in secret organizations, occultism, mystery, and action might give this a look if they see it in the LCS.

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