A new journey full of Faith.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Francis Portela with Marguerite Sauvage on fantasy sequence artwork
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
What They Say:
Orphaned at a young age, Faith Herbert – a psionically gifted “psiot” discovered by the Harbinger Foundation – has always aspired to greatness. But now this once ordinary teenager is taking control of her destiny and becoming the hard-hitting hero she’s always known she can be – complete with a mild-mannered secret identity, unsuspecting colleagues, and a day job as a reporter that routinely throws into her harms way! Well, at least she thought it would… When she’s not typing up listicals about cat videos, Faith makes a secret transformation to patrol the night as the City of Angels’ own leading superhero – the sky-soaring Zephyr!
But flying solo is going to be tougher than Zephyr ever thought when she uncovers a deep-rooted alien conspiracy. Two-bit burglars and car thieves are one thing, but when the world needs a hero to stave off a full-blown extraterrestrial invasion, will Faith find herself in over her head…or ready for her biggest challenge yet?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I don’t check out every new book that Valiant brings down the line I am generally curious enough about most of them. Part of it stems from me not wanting to get too deeply enmeshed in the shared universe side at this point, hence going more for the peripheral characters. The debut of Faith challenges me on that a bit as I love seeing non-standard characters in lead roles, I generally enjoy female lead books as well, but it involves a character that has been involved in the Harbinger section of the Valiant universe that I haven’t gotten involved with. So there’s some heavy lifting that the book has to do in filling in the blanks and it unfortunately doesn’t quite click as well as it should for a new reader to it all, which is problematic as half of it feels like it’s written for longtime fans.
The series revolves around Faith Herbert, found of the Harbinger Resistance and also known as the hero Zephyr. The group that she was involved with has essentially ended after recent events that aren’t really made clear and she’s now off doing her own thing in Los Angeles. Since she’s wanted to make a break with the past, she’s utilized some connections to establish a new identity as Summer Smith, an online article writer that finds herself doing listicles instead of the actual journalism she’d like to do as her cover. There’s the obvious and pleasant Superman parallels that are there, which she says plainly enough, in that she wants a proper secret identity so she can enjoy both lives. At the same time, when alone at home in her apartment, she’s totally Faith. No wig, no glasses, just relaxed and comfortable in herself Faith.
The book gives us a good look at her life and I enjoyed the way it connected us to a lot of people, including a nod towards Archer of the Archer & Armstrong series. The series feels lived in already and that’s certainly appealing as we get to connect with her as she moves into her new life and new direction. Also infectious is her desire to continue being a good guy, doing the right thing and helping others. We see her caught up with a group of puppynappers of all things, but that leads to other areas as there’s hints of her past coming back to the surface with a group of potential “pre-Psiots” having been disappeared. Again, you can suss out the basics of it all but there’s a lack of proper context given for a new reader to try and draw in the connections that are plainly obvious to those far more familiar with it. But that’s still a relatively minor quibble overall as the series does what it needs to best and that’s make us connect with Faith herself.
In Summary:
Houser has put together a solid enough and standard enough opening issue that works for the Valiant crowd and has just enough of a hook to draw in those outside it as well. I wish it had done a bit more to be accessible to new readers, but i’m not too surprised. Faith herself is definitely the draw and there’s an infectious energy to her that Houser captures just right and that Francis Portela brings to the page perfectly. There’s an honesty about it that will likely draw ire from some quarters, heaps of praise from others, and for me it simply works because of who she is. With Portela’s designs giving us a very good world and Marguerite Sauvage stepping in for some really fun fantasy sequences, there’s a lot to like – particularly as they didn’t try and make it a whole LA dual-body shame kind of thing here. It just is and there’s a lot to be said for that. I’m definitely on board for the book though wary of what kinds of connections it’ll latch onto with other series and characters. I really just want to see Faith establish herself and her own book.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: January 27th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
