Creative Staff:
Story: Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid
Art: Dean Haspiel
What They Say:
When a billionaire philanthropist prepares Paul Patton Jr’s home town for demolition, our hero is sent on assignment to photograph the event. But what strange force lurks in the shadows, and why will it take Paul’s alter-ego, THE FOX, to stop it? The answer is the beginning a deadly FOX HUNT and you won’t believe what happens next!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The second new series under the Dark Circle Comics banner is one that has a bit of history to it as it previously appeared as a five issue series under the 2012/13 Red Circle Comics banner that Archie Comics had. With the team from there largely coming back together here, that does provide a sense of continuity for those fans, but having not read that book I have to admit that this first issue was a bit of a complicated read in trying to figure out what’s going on. But sometimes a challenging book can be a good thing as it gets you to pick at the various story elements and characters in order to get at them rather than just having it all wash over you. It also doesn’t hurt that Dean Haspiel provides for some very fun artwork here with a good sense of placement and layout that makes it smoother and more engaging to go through. It also makes for some good re-reading value as there’s a lot of nice little details to be had in it and the color style used.
This issue takes us to the dead town of Beaver Kill, the place where Paul Patton grew up and discovered that his own father was The Fox years ago. Paul’s had a lengthy life as The Fox himself, though he’s spent a lot of time recently trying to get away from it all and leave it behind. But Paul is struggling with the nature of the world itself because he knows things as The Fox, such as that the man behind the Bright company, Mr. Smile, is pretty much your big corporate villain and crime kingpin that we get to see a bit of early on. Paul’s working as a photojournalist and the assignment he has is a pretty awful one in some ways as he’s brought his son to this town that’s going to be flooded by Bright in order to bring water to Impact City. It’s a good plan, but he has to set up a lot of product placement for the Smilephone that Bright puts out and it’s a pretty awful piece of equipment. Add that on top of all the nostalgia and memories in seeing how rundown the town is and what’s been done to it just paints a bleak picture that’s made worse by his son being pretty dismissive about all of it and his old media kind of ways.
That nostalgia has him falling into a bit of an awkward trap when while shooting pictures on the phone, he discovers a villain of some sort named Dream Demon that’s intending to poison the place so that Bright can’t destroy it since it’ll be pointless to run the water through it. The interesting piece to it that comes into it is that the villain is a woman who grew up there with Paul and is actually the girl he had his first kiss with and did his best to get close to until their lives went in very different ways. It’s an interesting connection to present and it helps to humanize and expand on Paul in a good way without being too forced. It’s not exactly the most engaging of action sequences that has Paul getting out of her clutches and trying to stop her from what she’s doing, and it even brings in his son for a bit in a way that makes things worse all around, both for the woman, for Paul and for his son as they struggle with who they are.
In Summary:
Having no experience with his incarnation of The Fox prior to this, though I’m curious now, the opening installment is one that doesn’t feel too accessible to new readers in a lot of ways, especially with the way the narrative works. It’s definitely a book that comes across smoother the second time around as you know what’s coming and can connect the dots a bit easier. What it does do is give us an interesting hero with an extensive history because of his own father as The Fox before, his length of time being one himself, and having a teenage son as well. That alone feels different since so many heroes in this sense tend to be young men or those without heavier connections like that which often weigh down writers in doing anything compelling with. Unfortunately, said son is one of the weaker parts of the book, but the opening issue has several things that keeps it from being a strong read. I’m curious about it and to see what else it’s going to do, and if we get a lot with Impact City and what else may be going on there since I have an interest in all of that from my past experiences with the Impact! Comics line. I’m definitely curious to see where this book goes though and how well it can find its way, if there’s a larger story to be told here.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Circle Comics
Release Date: April 15th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99