The Light #1 – Review

By: Nathan Edmondson (story) & Brett Weldele (art/letters)

The Story: A virus is infecting people who look at electric lights and causing them to burst into flames.  Amid the confusion a father and his daughter try to get to safety while avoiding looking at “the light”.

What’s Good: Thank goodness looking at the lights doesn’t turn people into zombies.  That’s such a crowded genre and even though I love zombies, unless someone really has something unique to say about them, it’s better left alone.  This first issue (of five total) is really just a set-up for the rest of that story, but it looks like Edmondson is in a good position to tell a nice post-apocalyptic story and that is always a fun genre.

This first issue quickly establishes our two main characters: a lousy drunk father and his teenage daughter.  I think their relationship is handled pretty well.  The crap hits the fan pretty suddenly in this issue and we wouldn’t expect the teenage daughter to respond well to her lousy father storming into her bedroom in the middle of the night demanding that she wear a blindfold.

The art is scratchy and moody.  It isn’t hyper-detailed, but it tells the story effectively.  The cover is a pretty good exemplar of what the issue looks like.

Codebreakers #1 – Review

By: Ross Richie (creator), Carey Malloy (writer), Scott Godlewski (art), Stephen Downer (colors) & Brett Weldele

Story: A group of U.S. government codebreakers try to stop the bad guys while dealing with the threat to one of their own.

What’s Good: The creators do a nice job of establishing this team of codebreakers.  We’ve got the brilliant/precocious guy, the geeky/attractive girl, the crusty old man and the mid-career veteran leader.  It may be a little cliche, but I think this is a stereotypical team for a reason: because it creates good drama.  It’s a classic setup where you can’t help but like how they gave each person on the team a complimentary specialty.

The story starts slow, but really picks up towards the ends when [minor spoiler alert] one of the team members goes missing in an apparent suicide.  Things really improve a lot as they show the leader of the team deciphering that it wasn’t a suicide, but an abduction made to look like a suicide.  [cue dramatic music]

This is an espionage book and the art is appropriate: it’s solid and helps the story but doesn’t shoot for flashy.  It helps that each team member has a very unique look, so the art never gets confusing which could be a problem for a book where everyone is talking about codes.