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CITIZEN V AND THE V-BATTALION: THE EVERLASTING #2
"The Good of the Many"
Neutral (4/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Pencils: Lewis LaRosa
Inks: Jim Royal, Scott Koblish & Udon Studios
Colors: Udon Studios
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
One of my favorite characters in the Thunderbolts has been Citizen V, but the character long ago went off in directions I didn't find very interesting, and that's part of the reason the V-Battalion mini-series don't appeal to me as much as the Thunderbolts. Another reason is that the plots
are highly complicated, the characters indistinguishable and the artwork
substandard. There are interesting elements to this story, including the
examination of truly ruthless protagonists and a worldwide operating scope that
not even the Avengers or JLA can boast, but I'm having a hard time grasping the
motivations of many of the characters and an even harder time caring about the
outcome, when I'm really not sure what the heroes are supposed to be fighting
against.
Perhaps the most interesting
aspect of this book, and sadly the one least explored, is the notion that the
V-Battalion has been around for a long time, fighting the war against evil in
ways that most heroes wouldn't even consider. Bribing telepaths to scan for
enemies, building enormous warships and showing a willingness (even an
eagerness) to kill are all tactics that are unusual for a super-hero team, and I
like that Nicieza has presented us instead with the super-hero team by way of a
special operations military unit.
Unfortunately, while the
complexities of espionage and spec ops warfare would make for an interesting
blend with super-heroes, there doesn't seem to be enough room to flesh those
complexities out in these mini-series. The mysterious goals of Aqhat are just as
mysterious to the readers as they are to the V-Battalion, and as a result it's
hard to really care whether they succeed or not. The obvious implications of big
destruction and death are false threats given the shared universe setting, as
all the readers know that the V-Battalion isn't actually going to kill off all
of China to stop the Collective Man, and so there's a lack of tension.
More to the point, though, is
that I just can't follow a lot of the book, and that has a lot to do with a
hefty cast of characters and not enough screen time for any of them. Even the
lead character, Citizen V, is barely developed, as he has been at times Baron
Zemo and Dallas Riordan, and so the man behind the mask now really isn't much
more than a cipher wearing a familiar costume. It's also hard to care that a
particular character is wiped out when she has spent about two panels on screen
for her entire existence.
In fairness, I'd probably
enjoy this book a whole lot more if the artwork on the cover was more indicative
of what we were getting on the inside. Deodato's gray covers are powerful and
iconic, but when you flip the book open, you're hit with Larosa's work, which is
abstract to the extreme. A strange mix of manga style and the more gritty work
like that of Alex Maleev, the artwork lacks a lot of clarity and more to the
point, a lot of beauty. It might work for more experimental story material, or
for a more grim and street level book, but it is emphatically not suited to this
large scale action story.
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