Freedom Fighters #7 – Review

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

The Story: By the power of Paul Revere’s lantern, General Sherman’s sword, and the Arcadians’ helmet of war, I summon the spirit of America!

The Review: The sad truth is cancellations never have a direct relationship to the title’s quality.  Even if an ongoing series is awful, as long as it brings in good money, it’ll survive.  Cancellations only happen when a title doesn’t sell, whether it’s so infamously terrible, hardly anyone can stand it; so flavor-specific, its audience isn’t enough to support it; or so underexposed, it never got on its feet to start with.

Freedom Fighters honestly falls in the middle category.  As a title that enthusiastically embraces its “Rah-rah-America!” nature, it winds up very niche.  We live in an era in which most people aren’t much interested in everyday patriotism except for special occasions.  Comic book readers, being increasingly older, more intellectual individuals, are even less likely to take nationalism seriously, so this title can’t help but come across endearingly sincere, but inescapably silly.

Gray-Palmiotti also make their work harder by attempting to bring in actual politics to the story, which always risks messiness.  The more experience you have in real politics, the more you realize that it’s way more complex and rich than the divide between liberals and conservatives, security versus democracy, which gets played up here.  Being so oversimplified damages the title’s integrity: thoughtful readers dismiss it, naïve readers get misled by it.