Codebreakers #3 – Review

By: Ross Richie (creator), Carey Malloy (writer), Scott Godlewski (art), Stephen Downer (colors) & Johnny Lowe (letters)

The Story: The team of CIA hacker/agents continues to try to rescue their kidnapped team-member Stan and we learn more about team-leader Foster’s past with the villain.

What’s Good: “Well, it isn’t bad.”  Honestly, there’s nothing about this series that just lunges out at me as being stink-o and sometimes that is an achievement in itself.  Usually with a poor espionage comic, I can see the plot twists coming a mile away.  Codebreakers delivers twists that were not expected.  I wouldn’t call them “shocking,” but I’ve read enough of these style books that it takes some cleverness to keep me off balance.  I don’t really want to divulge the twists too much here because it will defeat the purpose of reading the comic yourself, but let’s just say that we learn more about the code that Stan is asked to crack and Foster’s past.

The art is star of this 4-issue series for me.  Godlewski does a really nice job of giving all the characters a distinct look and changes styles effectively on the flashback pages.  I would also say that his style is very appropriate for an espionage story.  I really don’t need to see the pinnacle of JH Williams-style zaniness in an espionage comic (although saying that, I’m sure Mr. Williams could make me eat my words).  It would be nice if more artists went in for self-contained art that tells the story!

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.