FIRST WAVE by writer Brian Azzarello and artist Rags Morales has a lot of surface similarities to Alan Moore’s
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. Famous characters of fiction that exist separately are brought together to face a threat. Whereas Moore was playing with Victorian fiction, Azzarello is playing around with the pulps and DC’s heroes that are compatible with the pulp aesthetic.
Right from the start you see obvious separations in how that idea is handled. Moore started off with a basic assembling of the team so that we got to know the characters as they were introduced to Mina Murray. Azzarello starts off much more ambitiously as we are thrown right into a complicated plot. A scientist is on the run from a robotic killer only to be saved by Rima the Jungle Girl. Doc Savage returns for his father’s funeral only to discover that something is amiss. Denny Colt -- The Spirit -- is alerted by corrupt Commissioner Dolan that something is up at the stockyards, and ends up being transported with a mysterious coffin to a final encounter with the air adventuring Blackhawks. We also get a preliminary glimpse of the villains. How does that all fit together? We’ll have to come back for more to figure it out. This is certainly not a self contained issue and clearly has to be enjoyed as part of a bigger story. The lack of a clear threat to propel the story forward is perhaps the biggest deficiency to the first issue as even at the last page Azzarello is still laying some of the groundwork.
Still there are a lot of intriguing ideas here. Azzarello and Morales have created a universe that’s both modern and a throwback. And it’s a universe with its own unique history, including several oblique references to “The War” which was apparently recent. And we’re given a glimpse of the size of this storytelling universe in the first issue, with plenty of promise of exotic locales, mad scientists, femme fatales, and more to come.
Azzarello also gives these characters an update with a slightly more cynical spin. Doc Savage’s assistants are constantly bickering, primarily about the antics of Doc’s lawyer Ham, who appears to be more than a bit of a shyster. And The Spirit’s Commissioner Dolan -- as straight an arrow traditionally as Jim Gordon -- appears more than a little corrupt, albeit with enough moral compass to point The Spirit in the direction of trouble beyond his ethical limits. Azzarello also uses first person narration to try to introduce the reader to the isolated Doc Savage and the returned from the grave Denny Colt. Again, perhaps there are too many plates spinning to fully accomplish all of these tasks, but there’s evidence of an ambitious storyteller at work.
There’s also evidence of an artist firing on all cylinders. Rags Morales doesn’t do anything particularly experimental, but every page and panel works at telling the story clearly. Every character and locale looks great and he meets every storytelling challenge presented to him by Azzarello’s complicated script. From lush jungles to gleaming metropolis to down and out stockyard, Morales is a master of every environment thrown at him.
Overall, a promising first issue albeit it one lacking a central focus at the moment. It’s perhaps not the most audience friendly for those unfamiliar with these characters either, but it’s also a story promising a great deal of scope and ambition. And a story that looks to be a real treat visually. It’s too early to claim it a success, but it isn’t too early to proclaim it promising.
