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.