Letter 44 #1 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Yet another reason to dread getting snail mail.

The Review: This is not the place for me to get political, and I won’t, but I will say that I’ve never taken the president’s job for granted.  Whatever my opinions on certain policy decisions are, I always feel sorry for the man* who has to make that call.  Call me a foolish believer in the innate goodness of humanity, but I tend to think that even when the consequences seem disastrous, the intentions behind a presidential decision are for the country’s best interest.

In a similar vein, Soule presents a fictional U.S. presidency with obvious parallels to the one we all know so well.  You have newly elected Stephen Blades, running on a platform of openness and change in contrast to the departing Francis T. Carroll’s “eight years of war and economic uncertainty.”  During his time in office, Carroll apparently led the country into conflicts based on faulty information (“Your side had a field day when the WMD thing fell through.”) and developed a reputation for not being the brightest bulb in the room (holding up Carroll’s letter, Stephen’s advisor remarks, “You think it’s written in crayon?”).