Freedom Fighters #9 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Travis Moore (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Allen Passalqua (colorist)

The Story: Well, that gives new meaning to “blow up” doll.

The Review: There’s no point in naming names, but when you consider the pretty significant number of terrible titles on the stands out there, you have to wonder at the cancellation of Freedom Fighters less than a year after it launched.  It may have been a hard sell from the start, but it really can’t be considered on the same quality level as the series that deliver—in fact, will continue to deliver soul-sucking reads month after month.

Considering the open-ended finale to this issue, Gray-Palmiotti may have planned the Fighters’ disbandment all along, and if that’s true, this should have been the opening story arc.  The whole plot with the Arcadians took way too long and tried way too hard to give an epic feel, but never really gave a sense of danger or a cohesive tone to the series.

This issue immediately opens with a high-stakes conflict for the group: newly decommissioned, how will they fight the good fight now?  It seems the question has lit a fire under the team, as they act way more gung-ho and unified than they did the last eight issues.  It’s good to see them backing each other up, especially where Human Bomb’s more fragile status is concerned.  Their interactions have a comfortable familiarity that’s been missing for a while now.

Another missing element has been character growth (beyond Stormy and Black Condor shacking up, I mean), and this issue dives well into that.  Black Condor using his unemployment period to tackle crime in his reservation not only fleshes out his background and offers some fun moments (how dumb do you have to be to make locker room talk about your captor’s girlfriend in front of him?), it also makes a fitting political statement about his culture—without banging it over your head with nonsensical diatribes, Gray-Palmiotti’s preferred method of opinionating.

Freedom Fighters #8 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Travis Moore (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Allen Passalaqua (colorist)

The Story: What does the spirit of America do when it’s angry?  It punches you in the face.

The Review: By all accounts, this is the third series (the first two being minis) featuring the Freedom Fighters and written by the Gray-Palmiotti team.  The minis both had the problem of starting strong, then having the story fall part toward the end.  You’d think with that kind of experience, Gray-Palmiotti would have a firm handle on executing their plotting by now.

As it turns out though, this first story arc winds down just as anticlimactically.

Uncle Sam’s reappearance should have heralded the team getting its act together and taking down the Jester in all-American style.  Instead, his teammates spend the issue KO’ed while Uncle Sam has to finish the job himself.  And despite being a metaphysical concept come to supernatural life, Sam doesn’t have much in the way of skills and powers except a terrific right hook.  It makes for a fairly repetitive fight sequence, that’s for sure.

It doesn’t help Uncle Sam and Jester punctuate their punches with babble about American ideology and politics.  Let’s face it—very few people in general have a firm grasp on political science or the implications of their political beliefs.  If I may be so bold to say it, comic-book writers and readers probably have even less.  Can comics be a medium for political discourse?  Sure.  Superhero comics, not so much—check out Law and the Multiverse for just some of the wacky ways superheroes fly in the face our already jittery laws.

Freedom Fighters #6 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Travis Moore (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Rob Schwager (colorist)

The Story: As it turns out, the Freedom Fighters discover, there may be some truth to the whole mutant sewer creatures thing.

The Review: With most superhero teams, writers claim from time to time that such-and-such character is the “heart” of the team—usually a few weeks before killing them off.  After the immediate shock and grief is over, the team usually ends up functioning much like it did before.  But Uncle Sam has been a staple of the Freedom Fighters for so long he truly their emotional center.  You really can’t imagine the team without that tall, lanky, bearded Yankee on their side.

So it’s been interesting seeing Gray and Palmiotti handle Uncle Sam’s absence from the Fighters.  The impact of his “death” kind of got lost at first, what with the team being forced to continue the mission at hand without him.  But with every issue, the team has lost direction, even under the capable leadership of Miss America, until now you’re just longing for Uncle Sam to come back and make everything all right somehow.

It’s great that Gray-Palmiotti are bringing back some of the sticky issues from their original Freedom Fighters miniseries.  After all, the team was formed by some abominably shady forces and for a time operated without much deference to justice or mercy.  Under Uncle Sam’s reformation, they’ve slowly made their way back to respectability, but their actions toward the Jailbreakers this issue show that they’re toeing the line to being ruthless operatives again.

The confrontation between Phantom Lady and Miss America hits all the right points, but there’s some confusion as to who’s to blame for what went down.  Looking back at those earlier scenes, it won’t occur to you Joan doesn’t try her best to be accommodating to their enemies.  In fact, since Stormy’s the one teleporting people to safety, it seems she’d be more responsible for whatever breach of integrity they might have made.  This vilifying of Miss America—especially her coercive attitude toward Doll Man at the end—just comes off a little sudden and forced.