All-New Invaders #1 – Review

by James Robinson (Writer), Steve Pugh (Artist), Guru e-FX (Colorist)

The Story: Jim Hammond receives the visit of an alien being who is rather chatty about what she wants and where she think it might be.

The Review: Some writers are known for certain types of stories, certain genres. Geoff Johns is known for big super hero stories with a certain penchant for revitalization of silver age ideas, Ed Brubaker does noir very well and so forth. With these types of stories, it’s always a safe bet to understand the types of things a writer is best known for, as it does always ensure a certain safe bet in what the strengths of a particular writer might be.

James Robinson, the writer of this new series, is someone who knows how to work with older heroes, doing so splendidly in his magnum opus, Starman, as well in JSA: The Golden Age. With a certain knack for writing the legacy part of super heroes and people who have lived for a long period of time, it does seem quite fitting for him to be attached to All-New Invaders, a series about a team that did its things during World War 2. However, James Robinson is a rather uneven writer, which has been unfortunately shown in his Earth 2 series during the latest issues he wrote and in his previous tenure on Justice League of America. With his reputation, does this title seem to balance in the better part of his writing skills or is the first issue too problematic to be enjoyable?

It’s a bit of a balance between the two, for the most part. While the issue focus on something that Robinson is quite capable of writing, there are occasional troubles that comes down to plague the overall quality of the work. With this issue focusing mostly on Jim Hammond, Robinson is able to push forth his voice rather well, explaining in enough details how he landed in a small town and how he feels about his new life, getting us up to speed in the history of the character as well as what makes him tick. The general understanding of the character and what he went through is aptly balanced in the issue, with the part in which we understand the life of Jim Hammond being rather nice to read.