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A mysterious gangland murder brings out the worst in many people in power, and Newburn #7 is here to throw the plot twists at you fast and furious. When a
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The Antagonists #1-3 Review: Unforced Errors
With success on Kickstarter, The Antagonists #1-3 presents a wonderfully complex story about nuanced characters limited by technical execution issues. With a completely uncommon set of choices, this work has some really great moments, enjoyable artwork, and layers to its storytelling.
Destructus and Ultima are two of the most dangerous super-villains in the world. After being exposed to an extraterrestrial power source in their teens, Ultima developed a power set similar to Kryptonians (super strength, flight, near invulnerability, super hearing, heat vision, et cetera). Conversely, her literal partner in crime, Destructus, developed overwhelming mental powers, including high-grade telepathy and telekinesis. This went publicly well, with Destructus operating under another nom de guerre as the "sidekick" of The American, a Homelander-looking alpha hero. Destructus became disillusioned with The American and America as a whole, given the negative treatment of people of African descent and broke bad, leading to a campaign of terror that ended with an assault on the White House. From there, things only got more interesting.
Writer Tyler F. Martin has enormously interesting ideas, and each of these three issues has decent pacing for a periodical. The character of Tonya Eval (the new identity of Ultima) has become a high-powered real estate agent; her husband Calvin is a principal at a high school where his daughter Aaliyah is a student. Two other children — Tajj and Trey — have disparate meta abilities, from super-genius to a powerful healing factor. Each member of the family is hiding something — from the law, from each other, from themselves to a certain degree. The chemistry between them is very engaging. The labyrinthine structure of their lives borrows shades of the Black Lightning TV show or the intricacy of family dynamics from crime shows like Power or The Sopranos.
Likewise, the artwork from Giacomo Guida and Cristian Docolomansky is very enjoyable, providing clever means of showing the healing factor at work, the threat and magnificence of Ultima reveling in her power, the cleverness of Calvin in every incarnation.
The problem becomes the technical issues. On each cover, the word "supervillains" is spelled wrong. When Tajj is working on a science project, he asks for "the vile" instead of "the vial." There is already a popular misconception about the quality of independent books in general and Black independent books in specific, so these unforced errors are especially frustrating.
None of that changes the core quality of the ideas, even with challenges in execution. This book is engaging and interesting, and hopefully, with the Kickstarter success of the first three issues — all available for sale now — they'll be able to provide greater degrees of quality control. RATING: BUY.
The Antagonists #1-3
By Tyler F. Martin, Felipe Dunbar, Giacomo Guida
Married supervillains Destructus and Ultima struggle to protect their family and keep their past a secret decades after retirement.
The Antagonists #1-3
8/10
Taking a show like Power and dipping the whole affair in super powers is the best possible idea in this clever new indie series.
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