Freedom Fighters #9 – Review

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

The Story: Well, that gives new meaning to “blow up” doll.

The Review: There’s no point in naming names, but when you consider the pretty significant number of terrible titles on the stands out there, you have to wonder at the cancellation of Freedom Fighters less than a year after it launched.  It may have been a hard sell from the start, but it really can’t be considered on the same quality level as the series that deliver—in fact, will continue to deliver soul-sucking reads month after month.

Considering the open-ended finale to this issue, Gray-Palmiotti may have planned the Fighters’ disbandment all along, and if that’s true, this should have been the opening story arc.  The whole plot with the Arcadians took way too long and tried way too hard to give an epic feel, but never really gave a sense of danger or a cohesive tone to the series.

This issue immediately opens with a high-stakes conflict for the group: newly decommissioned, how will they fight the good fight now?  It seems the question has lit a fire under the team, as they act way more gung-ho and unified than they did the last eight issues.  It’s good to see them backing each other up, especially where Human Bomb’s more fragile status is concerned.  Their interactions have a comfortable familiarity that’s been missing for a while now.

Another missing element has been character growth (beyond Stormy and Black Condor shacking up, I mean), and this issue dives well into that.  Black Condor using his unemployment period to tackle crime in his reservation not only fleshes out his background and offers some fun moments (how dumb do you have to be to make locker room talk about your captor’s girlfriend in front of him?), it also makes a fitting political statement about his culture—without banging it over your head with nonsensical diatribes, Gray-Palmiotti’s preferred method of opinionating.

Freedom Fighters #8 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Travis Moore (penciller), Trevor Scott (inker), Allen Passalaqua (colorist)

The Story: What does the spirit of America do when it’s angry?  It punches you in the face.

The Review: By all accounts, this is the third series (the first two being minis) featuring the Freedom Fighters and written by the Gray-Palmiotti team.  The minis both had the problem of starting strong, then having the story fall part toward the end.  You’d think with that kind of experience, Gray-Palmiotti would have a firm handle on executing their plotting by now.

As it turns out though, this first story arc winds down just as anticlimactically.

Uncle Sam’s reappearance should have heralded the team getting its act together and taking down the Jester in all-American style.  Instead, his teammates spend the issue KO’ed while Uncle Sam has to finish the job himself.  And despite being a metaphysical concept come to supernatural life, Sam doesn’t have much in the way of skills and powers except a terrific right hook.  It makes for a fairly repetitive fight sequence, that’s for sure.

It doesn’t help Uncle Sam and Jester punctuate their punches with babble about American ideology and politics.  Let’s face it—very few people in general have a firm grasp on political science or the implications of their political beliefs.  If I may be so bold to say it, comic-book writers and readers probably have even less.  Can comics be a medium for political discourse?  Sure.  Superhero comics, not so much—check out Law and the Multiverse for just some of the wacky ways superheroes fly in the face our already jittery laws.