Seven Soldiers isn't going to be easy.
I'm not talking about Grant Morrison's efforts or what the artists will have to go through to match his vision. I mean for the reader... it ain't gonna be easy. But it will be worthwhile. Seven Soldiers is an experimental exploration of the super-hero genre, one that will challenge the reader, his preconceptions of the genre and ideas about its supposed limits. It's appropriate that Morrison is joined by artist J.H. Williams III and letterer Todd Klein for this opening salvo, as the tone of the script and more inventive layouts evoke immediate comparisons to Alan Moore's recently completed Promethea. Williams and Klein worked on that project as well, and both Promethea and this inaugural Seven Soldiers comics incorporate unconventional super-heroes and a sense of surreal.
A visit to Slaughter Swamp transforms an unusual tourist into a super-hero and opens his eyes to a group of unknown men who are manipulating the world and selecting seven champions needed to avert disaster. Meanwhile, Shelly Gaynor, the granddaughter of the Golden Age hero known as the Whip, has opted to follow in his footsteps as a means to seek thrills, but she craves more, craves the next step: joining a super-hero team. Enter the original Vigilante, who's looking to assemble a new Seven Soldiers of Victory team to hunt down a threat that eluded destruction by his hand years before.
Williams approaches the notion of the super-hero costume from a more grounded, hip perspective. The costumes for the new characters introduced here look and fit in a far more believable and realistic manner. Some are sexy, some are silly. I also loved the mind-bending look of the opening sequence. Dalt's surreal journey through the impossible is dizzying; Williams allows the reader to share in his experience with the artist. The colors add a mythic, magical energy to the sequence as well.
Grant Morrison may have some new things to say about super-heroes, but his appreciation and love of past stories and characters shines through here as well. He clearly has a soft spot for the vast array of mythic figures and stories of the DC Universe, and he revives obscure characters, both literally and with passing reference, in this script. A new verison of Little Boy Blue? The discovery of TNT and Dyna-Mite's explosive rings? A reference to the JLA/JSA/Seven Soldiers crossover story from the 1970s? I love it. Longtime genre fans will appreciate it as well, but Morrison is also careful not to hinge his plot on those elements so as not to exclude new readers from enjoying the story as well.
If there's one thing that's evident from this comic book, it's that the Seven Soldiers event is going to be a significant one. To describe this script as ambitious is to describe the CN Tower as "kind of tall." Morrison balances the more surreal and cosmic aspects of the story with strong, grounded characters. Most of the "Soldiers" we meet here boast personalities we can recognize from people in our own lives... name-droppers, fanboys, man-children, tough guys and more. 10/10
