Chaos War: God Squad #1 – Review

By: Marc Sumerak (writer), Dan Panosian (art), Antonio Fabela (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: A bunch of neither God, nor mortal heroic types battle the forces of Chaos.

What’s Good: This is a comic you buy if you’re into a couple of the characters OR are buying the whole Chaos War event (like me).  The story focuses on Daimon Hellstrom, Sersi, Silver Surfer & Venus.  How’s that for an odd team?  Probably most Marvel fans will be interested to read about one or two of those characters.  For me, the highlights are the Surfer and Venus.  Although Venus’ joke of signing some appropriate (yet oddly inapt) song to solve a problem is not a new joke, it really never gets old.  It is one of those story devices where you can just tell that every Marvel writer has “the song” that they’re going to have Venus sing if they ever get to writer her.  I love reading a comic that contains that sort of enthusiasm from the creators.  Do you doubt that some Marvel writer has a plan to have Venus sing “Baby got back” someday?

In an oddly good moment for an event tie-in, this issue actually expands the Chaos War event a little bit by explaining why these four characters are important to defeating the Chaos King.  Here’s a hint: The name “God Squad” is actually kinda a misnomer for them, but only “kinda”.  This was a neat concept and I hope it is explored a little more in the Chaos War proper.

Panosian’s art is mostly excellent.  There were pages in here where I said, “Ohhh.  I like that.  I wouldn’t mind having that framed on my wall.”  That doesn’t happen in every comic.  This issue also has a lot of cosmic vibe to it that allows Fabela’s colors to shine.