The failures are now the hunted.
Creative Staff:
Story: Eric Heisserer
Art: Raul Allen
What They Say:
A young girl who can talk to birds… A boy who can make inanimate objects gently glow… To others, these are expensive failures. But, to Livewire, they are secret weapons…in need of a leader. Now, as a mechanized killer called Rexo seeks to draw them out, Livewire and her new team of cadets will be forced to put their powers into action…in ways they never could have imagined…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
My immersion in the Valiant universe continues to be one that sticks to the edges, focusing on the “oddball” series here and there and not so much the big books or team/event material. With Secret Weapons, I was curious as to what it would be like as I’ve enjoyed the quirkiness of Eric Heisserer’s other works in the last few years, plus his involvement in that little excellent film called Arrival last year. Teaming with Raul Allen on the artwork, Secret Weapons is a four-issue miniseries that kicks off here to deal with the fallout from a recent event that I have little knowledge of. Thankfully, both Hiesserer and Allen work well together here to smooth over it so the very basics are easy to figure out and the focus on the new(?) characters clicks to draw you into it.
The main gist of recent events is that the man behind Harbinger, Harada, has disappeared or gone off on some sort of mission, but before doing so released a ton of information on his work. One of those elements was in helping people discover their psiot ability that would allow him to raise an army of powered individuals. As we’ve seen over the years in other books, there are plenty that don’t fit the right powered bill and are basically considered useless with what they can do. At the same time, we’ve seen many books deal with these outcasts, the leftovers, and how they can save the day in their own way if only given the chance. In that sense, Secret Weapons isn’t terribly original or mind bogglingly creative. But what it does is set the template for some creative character material to come into focus.
The general idea is that since these people are now known to exist and a lot of “regular” people are in a panic that doesn’t reside in logic, a creature has been let loose to go eliminate them. Known as Rex-o, we see it doing a few kills and then hunting the ostensible leads of this miniseries, such as the girl who can talk to birds (which is wonderfully engaging) or the guy who can make things glow, among others that we’re starting to be aware of. Though they’re looking to become the main focus, we do get the real continuity established with Livewire here trying to help and sort things out after her time working for Harada. Her technological abilities obviously makes this easy to do in a lot of ways but there are also some amusing challenges. Livewire is our bridge from the other properties to connect this in some ways and she brings the parental side with a dose of authority to help the kids she’s now invested in saving.
In Summary:
With just a four-issue run, Secret Weapons sets up the basics pretty well here. A lot of the appeal for me is with Nikki and her bird-talking ability simply because of the conversations she has and naming two of them Waldorf and Statler. The bigger idea here is a good one with the way that there will be a lot of targeting of the ineffective psiots out there as they’re easy to take out and you can see people being empowered by that through their own fear. Heisserer has some good setup here but so far the stakes are simple and low (relatively speaking) and the basic element is survival, which can and is done well here. But it lacks something for me as a new reader to this part of the Valiant universe to feel really invested into it in a big way. Yet, the lack of big stakes is definitely a big plus so that it’s not overkill. I’d definitely check it out though as this team has put together a great looking book that’s smooth reading with lots of potential.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: June 28th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
