RED ONE, VOLUME 2

"UNDERCOVER"
Created by Xavier Dorison & Terry Dodson
Script: Xavier Dorison with the collaboration of Antoine Cristau
Pencils & Colors: Terry Dodson | Inks: Rachel Dodson | Letters: Clayton Cowles

Here we go again. I wrote about RED ONE volume 1 last March, and despite Terry Dodson's beautiful artwork, I wasn't terribly impressed with the story. But these volumes are so cheap that I decided to give the series one more chance to impress me. Did it? Let's find out...

When last we left our Soviet heroine, Vera Yelnikov, she was in battle with the Carpenter, a masked agent of a sinister American fundamentalist named Jacky Core, in Los Angeles. Vera rescues the Carpenter's target, a pregnant lesbian named Judith, and even apparently kills the Carpenter by running his truck off the road and into the water.

From there we begin to learn a few things that -- at least to my year-plus-old recollection -- were either unclear or glossed over in the prior volume: namely, gubernatorial candidate Jacky is a pastor who entertains her flock by showing them a post-World War II fundamentalist film called THE FARM, and that Vera's American employer, porn producer Lew Garner, is working on a salacious remake of THE FARM, called SEX FARM, which he believes will (somehow) ruin Jacky's reputation and cost her the election.

This is a weird book. It's really kind of obvious that it's written by someone born and raised overseas, because his grasp of how things work in the United States is tenuous. Early on, when Vera rushes Judith into a hospital, she's told bluntly that it's a private institution and the doctors will do nothing for the beaten and dying woman. Yeah, we have privatized healthcare in the U.S., and yeah, the bills for the sort of treatment Judith needs would probably sink her into crippling debt... but find me a hospital anywhere in this country that would simply and coldly turn away a mortally injured pregnant woman. You can't. Neither now, nor in 1977, and especially not in Los Angeles, has such a place ever existed.

THE UNBOXING - FEBRUARY 2017

We've got a couple books from outside the realm of the usual suspects (Marvel, DC, and IDW) this month, so I'll save those for last. First up are two offerings from Marvel: LUKE CAGE, IRON FIST, AND THE HEROES FOR HIRE Volume 2. and WOLVERINE: WEAPON X UNBOUND. Both conclude runs begun in previous collected editions, though you wouldn't know it based on the Wolverine book's name.

"Unboxing" aficionados will recall that the HEROES FOR HIRE series was fast-tracked, with volume 1 just released a couple months back. The WOLVERINE book, meanwhile, completes the Larry Hama/Marc Silvestri run that began in 2013's WOLVERINE BY LARRY HAMA & MARC SILVESTRI volume 1 and 2014's volume 2. Why wasn't this collection simply branded as volume 3 in that series? My guess would be that with a full three years elapsed since the prior volume (it came out in February of '14), Marvel opted to go with a new angle for the final installment. In any case it doesn't really matter; the important thing is that the complete Hama/Silvestri run is now collected in three nifty paperbacks.

RED ONE, VOLUME 1

"WELCOME TO AMERICA"
Created by Xavier Dorison & Terry Dodson
Script: Xavier Dorison | Pencils & Colors: Terry Dodson
Inks: Rachel Dodson | Letters: Clayton Cowles

It seems working on MUSE was an agreeable experience for Terry Dodson, as he subsequently chose not to re-up his Marvel contract and decided instead to continue working in the European comic market. The first follow-up to MUSE comes in the form of RED ONE, co-created by Dodson and French writer Xavier Dorison, which received a domestic release from Image in 2015 in the form of two single comic book issues followed by a lovely oversized hardcover album collecting both chapters together.

I had high hopes for this one for a few reasons. One, though I found the ultimate resolution of MUSE to be a bit iffy, I really did enjoy the story up until the eleventh hour twists came into play, and I found Dodson's artwork and colors to be tremendous. Two, from what advance material I saw, RED ONE was to be set in the seventies and feature a Cold War-themed plotline. For reasons even I don't entirely understand, I love the seventies. I'm fascinated by the decade and I tend to enjoy almost any period piece set in that timeframe.

Unfortunately, this first volume doesn't quite live up to my expectations.

The story concerns a fundamentalist movement in 1977 California, headed by gubernatorial candidate Jacky Core, which supports the actions of a vigilante called the Carpenter -- a man on a mission to cleanse the Los Angeles area of "undesirable" elements in the most violent ways imaginable. The KGB objects to Core's position, believing that if elected, she will work against an upcoming nuclear treaty and cause trouble for the Soviet Union down the line. To combat the Carpenter and undermine Core, KGB higher-ups send their best agent, Vera Yelnikov, to California to become a superhero and stand up for the Carpenter's oppressed victims.

SPRINGTIME GRAB BAG

As I've done in past years, I plan to spend the majority of the spring on various assorted mini-series from publishers other than Marvel or DC. The next four Fridays will kick this off, beginning with THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST, a reprint of the manga serialized in NINTENDO POWER magazine back in the nineties.

After ZELDA, we'll take a look two offerings from artist Terry Dodson and a pair of European writers, D-P Filippi and Xavier Dorison -- MUSE and RED ONE. Following the Dodson experience, I've lined up a review of the first volume in Walter Simonson's RAGNARÖK series at IDW.

Then it's into the realm of sword and sorcery for the month of April, and our gateway to that genre will be a MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE graphic novel I've owned for about thirty years, THE SUNBIRD LEGACY. Once that one's in the can, I'll be back to announce the second half of the Springtime Grab Bag, so stay tuned!