Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel
Artist: Rod Reis
Release Date: 28th May 2014

When it was announced at the previous Image Expo that Kyle Higgins would be (co-)writing this series and that Rod Reis would handle pencils, it definitely piqued my interest. From the promotional material that dribbled out at the time, the influences of the creative team were clear to see.  This first issue follows that trend, showing familiar characteristics in terms  of writing and formatting that are typical to these creators.  Thankfully, with Higgins and Reis, that is most definitely no bad thing.

The story itself is paced at a breakneck speed and from the very beginning it is just constantly moving, which at times makes it hard to keep up (if only slightly) but the characters shown thus far seem to have their own agenda’s and are morally ambiguous. There aren’t any cleanly defined ‘heroes’ that I could see. This, coupled with the sheer density of extra information given – including a roll call of the team at the beginning, a map of locations in the story in the middle and a character file at the end — it all adds to the feeling that there is an extremely well-developed back story here.

The art never disappoints here. If you are familiar with Rod Reis’s art from his time at DC, you will know he can produce superior stuff and here he seems significantly less constricted from the parameters he often works in. For example, the 60’s setting is subtle [in a world of heroes in the skyline not immediately obvious] but still clearly present throughout.

The big sell for this book was always going to be the ‘star power’ of the creative team, but there is definitely something truly interesting here, and using this opening issue as a launchpad — this series has lots of potential.

Rating: 4/5.

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The writer of this piece was:
Gary Kane aka (GK)
Article: Flashin’ Back!
GK tweets from @Kanoclassic