Venger is a new comic from a new company, and the first issue is premiering at Wizard World Philly this weekend. If you happen to be a fan of crime and superheroes, and especially if you were one of the lucky few who caught onto a similar crime/superhero blend in Fintan Studios's The Forgotten, it might be worth stopping by their booth to pick one up. Venger: Dead Man Rising is about a crime wave sweeping through an unnamed city, a cop who is involved in the final stages of a big trial to put down a major league bad guy and a golden age hero who is having trouble convincing even his grandson that this crime wave is more than just random occurrence. Spatola and Ossman blend elements of police procedural, legacy superheroes and ominous stirrings of predestined danger into an interesting mix, and Ossman's artwork, with a simple yet detailed approach that has elements of Bruce Timm, Charlie Adlard and Mike Oeming, impresses from start to finish.
This book features several stories, all dove-tailing into one another to some extent. The golden age hero is the grandfather of the hero cop, the crime wave is tied into the history of one of them and the present of the other, and I'd be very surprised if we don't find out that the trial of the bad guy has some ramifications for this overall story as well. However, while Spatola's plot is generally pretty focused, the story also has some scattershot elements to it. The sudden attack of the "angel of mercy" comes out of nowhere, and seems a jarring change from the tone of that book up to that point. It makes for a good "will he live?" type of cliffhanger, but the character and her context aren't entirely clear.
However, this mixture of elements is, if occasionally a bit jarring, certainly one of the big appeals of Venger as well. Spatola is writing a story that is as much about a familial conflict as a mysterious crime wave, as much a book about vigilante superheroes as cops investigating said crime wave. While the dialogue doesn't always flow as smoothly as I'd like, in general Spatola gives the characters believable voices and a very readable patois that gets the reader right into the streetside view of the book. I was particularly pleased with the crime scene sequences before "Mercy" burst in, as it feels like working stiffs doing an unusual job, not the bigger-than-life style that often permeates cop books in a superhero setting.
While the writing of Venger is solid, it was the artwork that really turned my head. Jason Ossman has a clean and clear style with excellent storytelling, and his work looks exceptional with the graytone "colors" of John West. There's plenty of background detail where needed, as with the stark, moody opening shot of the city, but he also has very distinctive characters, notably the gruff and craggy grandfather of our lead character. Ossman has a style that I think would suffer under all but the most skilled of colorists, but in the graytoned style used here, he really shines.
Venger: Dead Man Rising is a promising new indy with strong art and an interesting mix of crime and superhero archetypes. The first issue raises a lot of mysteries, so how well the series comes out will rest in large part on Spatola's ability to bring these mysteries to a satisfying conclusion, but it's off to a good start. 7/10
