Quite honestly, this sounds more like a great concept for an ongoing series than a limited series, and the first issue certainly proves the validity of the concept, but I'll take what I can get. I'm a fan of military science-fiction, whether you're talking about Starship Troopers, Aliens or Predator... there's something just cool about a squad of soldiers, modern or futuristic, facing down threats that the real military hasn't had to deal with. Templeton captures the two most important elements of the genre, the camaraderie of the soldiers and the fear of the unknown that comes with their enemies, and packages it together in a standalone story that also serves as a perfect introduction to Human Defense Corps.
While I knew what to expect from the talents of Ty Templeton, however, the lead artist is a new name to me, and he acquits himself well. Sauve Jr.'s style is familiar but hard to place, reminiscent of John McCrea in terms of shadow and general shape, but some of his design work for the characters or technology reminds me more of angular artists like Travis Charest or Brian Stelfreeze. At any rate, Sauve Jr., with Juan Vlaso on inks and Moose Baumann on colors, serves up some solid artwork here, conveying the chaos of combat without forcing the reader to lose track of individual characters in the midst of it.
And Templeton does give the reader plenty of individual characters to sympathize with. His plot device at the beginning, an interview by Lois Lane, is a great way to get the characters to introduce themselves directly to the reader and to directly spell out the rhyme and reason of the Human Defense Corps without it coming off too much like pure exposition. I also enjoyed the narration from Specialist Kelly, who imparts the military mindset as well as giving us a couple of insights into other characters given his judgment of them.
While I was interested enough just in the concept and exploring the way that the Human Defense Corps works with the military hierarchy, Templeton also provides an interesting action story for the first issue. Anyone who has seen military science-fiction knows the drill, that these well-equipped soldiers become overconfident because of their training and equipment and then run into something they aren't ready for, which results in lots of carnage and plenty of fear. That's the pattern followed here, and I thought Templeton did a great job of presenting the soldiers as too reliant on their training and tech, rather than simply stupid for plot's sake. I also like that one of the soldiers is smart enough to realize what's going on and deal with it, rather than having the team saved by an outsider (like Ripley in Aliens).
In addition to interesting characters and solid action, Templeton provides a through-line to the story in the form of Kelly's story arc, as he is forced to confront something he never would have expected (and I don't mean the aliens). By putting a personal face on a story of combat, Templeton makes it easy to relate to, and with the help of Sauve Jr. and Vlasco, he gets across plenty of information in the first issue without sacrificing the story at the same time.
