by Randy Lander

SCI-SPY #1 Mildly Recommended (6/10) DC Comics/Vertigo imprint Writer: Doug Moench Pencils: Paul Gulacy Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti Colors: Paul Mounts Letters: Clem Robins Editor: Will Dennis Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN I've always found the work of Moench and Gulacy together to be good, but it often lacks spice, and Sci-Spy is no exception. It's filled with solid action storytelling, an interesting premise and setting and an intriguing plot, but the characters don't come alive the way they do with writers like Rucka, Bendis or Winick. Nevertheless, Sci-Spy is an exciting action-adventure, and should find favor with fans of action-heavy espionage like the Bond films or TV's Alias. One thing you can always count on with a Moench/Gulacy production is solid storytelling, and Sci-Spy has that in spades. The opening sequence establishes everything we need to know about the setting and about protagonist Sebastian Starchild, a spy in the renegade loner mold. And although espionage stories are notorious for being complicated, Moench manages to boil down the events into a fairly simple good vs. evil storyline. This is a weakness when you compare it to more shaded work like Queen & Country, but a strength as far as ease of storytelling goes. The highlight of the series so far is the action, though. Gulacy and Palmiotti do a terrific job on the pursuit of Lazlo and the escape from the pleasure satellite, and there's a fun aspect to Sebastian's various toys, which are spy gadgets with an ultra-tech edge, such as his morphing orb or starship. In addition, there are some surprisingly cosmic elements to the story with the holographic home tesseract that Sebastian lives in or the floating attack cubes that show up toward the end. To be honest, this doesn't really seem like it belonged in Vertigo, as the occasional swearing and nudity feel like they were inserted to give it more of an edge. This is not much more risqué than a lot of Wildstorm's regular output, and I think it's a shame that younger teenage readers might not be able to get a comic heavy on the action, which they might enjoy, so that we can have unnecessary nudity and out-of-place swearing. In the end, I guess you could say that I wasn't really excited about Sci-Spy, but neither was I disappointed. It's a solid read, with good craft behind it, and I'm interested to see where it goes next, but it didn't really grab me the way a great first issue can. Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.