A galactic journey that starts off with a bang and demands more attention.
Creative Staff:
Story: Joe Casey
Art: Nathan Fox, Jim Rugg & Ulises Farinas
What They Say:
Joe Casey is one of the industry’s most popular writers having written for Marvel and DC, from The Uncanny X-Men to Superman, and many more best-selling titles, and most recently created and writes the acclaimed Sex series from Image Comics! Now he is tackling one of Jack Kirby’s greatest creations, Captain Victory! And this story will Blow! Your! Mind! Out of the hell of a cosmic firefight, Captain Victory is launched into an epic adventure that spans both space and time! All your favorites are here — as well as all-new enemies to face! Your new favorite cosmic comic book has finally arrived!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a lengthy history that spans several decades but has only a smattering of issues, Captain Victory is not a title of Jack Kirby’s that I had gotten familiar with when it was originally published by Pacific Comics. Neither did any of the revival attempts, including the 2011 run done by Dynamite Entertainment. The arrival of a new series, written by Joe Casey and handled by a trio of artists here to get it off the ground, is quite well timed in a way that’s almost amusing in a sense. I had just left the theater for my second viewing of Guardians of the Galaxy and sat down to read this, not being quite sure what to expect. In a lot of ways, the title certainly complements that property in that it has a lot of star spanning and grand ideas and involves a kind of ragtag group. Bringing a science fiction adventure out now has always been kind of risky, but there’s a sense with this from me that it’s a title that should find a lot of fans because as crazy as it gets here in the first issue, it has a weird sense of fun to it that’s almost addictive.
I don’t know how, or if, it really connects with any of the past work, so I’m going into the book fresh. What we get is a kind of galactic war that’s going on against someone called Blackmaas that the Galactic Rangers are fighting against. Discoveries are made quickly here at the start with the ragtag group of different creatures, some humanoid to be sure, but they’re up against bad odds and are getting their asses handed to them in a big way. The Rangers have their leader in Captain Victory, who unfortunately is also getting taken down pretty hard. Luckily for them, Victory can actually have his memories backed up and placed into a clone body. Eight of them are on hand and ready while others are in various states. It’s not an unfamiliar concept to be sure, but it has a kind of frantic energy here as the crew faces off in an intense battle before fleeing, seeing Victory nearly burned to a crisp and attempting to get him transferred over before he loses any of his memories.
Where things go all really crazy is that the clone center ends up suffering critical damage during the transfer and it turns into a huge mess. While the ship is in a really bad way, when the rest of the crew get down there what they find is pretty much big trouble. The idea is a really fun one that could lead to some great storytelling in that classic Kirby sense of being big, epic and grand but also strangely personal. While the transfer completed, two clones were ejected from the ship along two different paths. We see one of them is a half grown clone, basically a young teenage boy, who ends up being shunted through hyperspace and crashing in New York City and struggling to understand what’s going on. The other is a full sized version of Victory, but he comes across as almost kind of hulking and a deadly kind of hunter dangerous. He doesn’t land on Earth but some other world that has suffered seemingly long years of being bombed from space and is managed by alien drones. With those two ideas out there and the dreadnaught crew trying to figure out which one may be Victory that they need to rescue, it’s pretty wide open as to what they can do.
The first issue is one that’s definitely all over the map in a way and it has a crazy kind of energy that feels like it thrusts you from panel to panel in a really great way. I love the artwork, even the fact that it changes for various sections by different artists so it takes on a very different feeling, but I’m not sure it’ll work out great long term. For now, it offers a neat way of dealing with these different scenarios. There’s a lot of things thrown at the reader here at the start with characters, situations and a hodgepodge of craziness right after, but Casey makes it work in a surprisingly easy and almost graceful way. If I have any real complaint, it’s that the character of ORca has his text done in a way that absolutely is near impossible to read on digital devices.
In Summary:
I tend to not grade high on first issues because most books are just trying to figure things out and going with standard stories. Captain Victory has little of the leader here for the most part and throws us hard into a number of stories that spin out of the chaos of the first few pages. But it draws you in because it doesn’t feel like it’s playing by the usual formula, even if there are plenty of familiar echoes. I don’t feel close to any of these characters, but that’s not the point here. Casey and the team of artists have painted a broad brush stroke across an empty canvas. Yes, there’s plenty of things to be said about homages and intent towards Kirby’s original work and it’s all going to be pretty valid. But I also recently read one of the Dreadstar trades from Jim Starlin and you can see a hell of a lot of that in here as well. The combination of a Kirby and Starlin with Casey and his team drawing it all together is a special kind of magic that I really hope turns into something amazing here. It has all the right ingredients and is a must-try book.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 6th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99