Leroy Douresseaux Reviews: MARKSMEN Volume 1

MARKSMEN VOLUME 1
IMAGE COMICS/BENAROYA PUBLISHING

CREATORS: Michael Benaroya, David Baxter, and Dave Elliot
STORY: David Baxter and Dave Elliot
SCRIPT: David Baxter
PENCILS: Javier Aranda
FINISHES: Gary Leach
COLORS: Jessica Kholinne and Benny Maulana
LETTERS: Bebe Giraffe
ADDITIONAL ART: Tomm Coker (series cover); Nam Kim and Matthew Dalton (end papers)
COVER: Javier Aranda and Gary Leach with Jessica Kholinne
ISBN: 978-1-60706-486-2; paperback
192pp, Color, $15.99 U.S.

Produced by Benaroya Publishing, Marksmen is a six-issue miniseries set in a post-apocalyptic America. It presents a world where everything seems to have gone wrong: a financial meltdown with a global domino effect, civil war, mass riots, looting on a large scale, opportunistic vigilantism, exodus from the cities, starvation, and even cannibalism.

Image Comics just released Marksmen Volume 1, a trade paperback collecting all six issues of the series with additional material. That includes “The Future in Our Sights,” an essay about the world of Marksmen and also two-pages of character designs. Hugo Award-winning science fiction author, Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep, 1992) provides an afterword.

Created by Michael Benaroya, David Baxter, and Dave Elliot, Marksmen is dystopian science fiction. It is set 60 years after a global financial meltdown led to a civil war that splintered the United States into warring fiefdoms. Most of the action takes place in and around New San Diego (NSD), a technocratic utopia that offers the last bastion of peace and prosperity for those that live within its walls. Sgt. Drake McCoy, NSD’s best protector, is one of a select group known as the Marksmen, a defensive force descended from the Navy SEALs. The Marksmen defend the city from the numerous human threats that exist in the wasteland outside New San Diego’s walls.

Now, there is a new threat. The oil rich Lone Star State is sending a powerful army to steal New San Diego’s technological secrets. Arriving ahead of them is a renegade group of former Lone Star State denizens. One of them is Joe Percival, a former NSD with ties to Drake’s father, Admiral Leo McCoy, and his mother, Dr. Sharon Heston, the NSD’s head scientist. Will Percival and his son, Sean, have anything that can help Drake and the NSD stop the Lone Star Rangers? Or are the Rangers’ charismatic leader, The Duke, and resident religious fanatic, Deacon Glenn, really unstoppable?

There is not much to say about Marksmen other than to say that it is a damn good read. On Monday, May 14, I received a review copy from Benaroya Publishing. I read the first two chapters on Tuesday, May 15. On Wednesday, May 16, I practically devoured Chapters 3 to 6 and I wanted more. Marksmen is like Black Hawk Down meets Mad Max, but Marksmen’s villains are scarier than the bad guys in either of those movies.

This is a well-thought out future scenario. Writer David Baxter offers some sharp commentary on the real world social, political, and financial situations happening right now that could lead to a situation similar to the one presented in Marksmen. Then, Baxter turns it into a breathtaking science fiction and military action thriller. It is more popcorn fun than most Hollywood heavy hitter action flicks, and it is scarier because this story’s basis is grounded in the current disquieting reality.

On the storytelling end, the art by Javier Aranda (pencils) and Gary Leach (finishes) is good, but Aranda’s pencils don’t display the polished quality of a veteran artist. Composition and the layout of some of the panel interiors is a little off. However, Aranda has the ability to create drama and tension that grabs the reader, and he has a knack for visualizing both physical and non-physical conflict. This is why Marksmen keeps hitting the mark.

Readers looking for credible comic book action thrillers will want Marksmen Volume 1 for repeated readings.

A-

Leroy Douresseaux Reviews: RED SPIKE VOLUME 1

RED SPIKE VOLUME 1
IMAGE COMICS/BENAROYA PUBLISHING

CREATORS: Michael Benaroya and Jeff Cahn
STORY: Jeff Cahn with Dave Elliot
SCRIPT: Jeff Cahn
ARTISTS: Salvador Navarro and Mark Texeira
COLORS: Ifansyah Noor of Imaginary Friends Studios
LETTERS: John Aitken
COVER: Mark Texeira
ISBN: 978-1-60706-487-9, paperback
144pp, Color, $14.99 U.S.

From Benaroya Publishing, Red Spike is a comic book miniseries created by Michael Benaroya and Jeff Cahn. Written by Cahn and drawn by Salvador Navarro and Mark Texeira, the series is set in a secretive black operations program called Project Red Spike. The entire five issues of the miniseries were recently collected in the trade paperback, Red Spike Volume 1.

Project Red Spike, like many over a 70-year period, was started as a program to create the first super-soldier. Using a process that manipulates and regulates the adrenal gland in human males, Project Red Spike actually succeeded in creating a super-soldier, and they did it twice. Now, Colonel Moyer, the hard-nosed prick who controls Red Spike, is testing the limits of his two new super-human toys, Gregory “Greg” Dane and Matt Cutler. But there are complications, of course.

Greg is having an affair that turns into a full romance with Dr. Margaret Downey, the woman who is supposed to be monitoring his (and Matt’s) mental health. Dane isn’t exactly the obedient solider, and as his behavior grows more insubordinate, he clashes with the straight-arrow Matt Cutler, who obediently follows orders and instructions. Colonel Moyer, who now sees Dane and Cutler as his property, seeks to further experiment with the limits of how much Red Spike can alter these two young men. Meanwhile, Henry Coughlin, formerly directly involved with Project Red Spike, plots to wrest control of the program from Moyer.

My first encounter with Red Spike was the third issue. I noted that it had the “rock solid plotting found in tightly-written, big-budget action movies.” I also mentioned that it had “elements of Captain America and the Jason Bourne films,” and that “it most reminds me of Universal Soldier, the 1992 Van Damme film.” I wrote, “Like the Van Damme films from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, Red Spike is violent and testosterone-filled, but with a humanist lead character who fights because he must.”

Now, that I’ve read the entire miniseries in Red Spike Volume 1, I have to reassess. As a whole, personally, I find the series lacking in action scenes, considering that this book is about a super-soldier program. Artist Salvador Navarro and Mark Texeira offer a few nicely composed fight scenes that left me really wanting more.

This is not to say that Red Spike is overall lacking in pleasures. Despite what the covers for the miniseries suggest, Red Spike is a science fiction/military drama mixed with the elements of a workplace drama and a political soap opera, and it is fun. I enjoyed the backbiting and squabbling. Writer Jeff Cahn sometimes cut back and forth between two scenes, each scene featuring a character doing something to defeat the other character. This reminds me of the best inter-office politics moments of the 1995 film version of Clear and Present Danger.

In my earlier review, I describe the art by Navarro and Texeira as “uninspired” and wrote that it “put a damper on my enjoyment” of the series. Now, that art seems perfect for what Red Spike really is, which is a thriller more than it is an action comic book.

http://www.benaroyapublishing.com/