After how much I enjoyed 21 Down, my expectations for The Resistance were high, and it didn't quite hit them. The book has a lot going for it, including a time-worn but classic premise and fantastic artwork by Santacruz and Portela, but too much of this issue feels like it's spoon-feeding the reader backstory or jumping past segues to get to where the creators want the story to be. With a little pacing adjustment, though, The Resistance could really be something special. It's got elements of Phillip K. Dick, the Wachowski Brothers and William Gibson, all presented with amazing artwork from a pair of promising new artists.
It's always tricky introducing a new world, and Gray and Palmiotti falter a little bit in trying to convey the status of this world and how it got this way. The opening scene between Brian and his grandfather reads more like exposition than a conversation between two relatives, for example. As the book goes on, though, this disappears, and the conversation between the GCC operative and his wife is a great example of providing information without spoon-feeding it to the reader. Though the slang isn't familiar, it's easy to put it in context and figure out what these people are talking about, which helps the reader work out more about the world in which The Resistance is set.
In fairness, part of my problem with the pacing of this issue comes because Gray and Palmiotti have to work a lot of story into this first issue. They introduce a fair number of characters, provide some fantastic chase and action sequences and put everybody who needs to be together for the second issue to happen. This results in the occasional shortcut, like Surge coming out of nowhere in the hospital and rescuing Brian (I went back three or four times looking for a visual cue that showed where he came from and didn't find it), but it also keeps the book moving fast and keeps the reader turning pages. Though I'm not invested in Brian or Surge personally yet, Gray and Palmiotti show off a world horrible enough that anyone fighting against it automatically looks like someone I want to support.
The world of The Resistance is the most enticing thing about the book. Corrupt totalitarian governments are nothing new, so the trick is to play on reader expectations to get them to sympathize with and care about your rebellion. The notion of licensed births, not enough food or medicine and a government force that ruthlessly tracks down societal dissenters is frightening, all the more so because of parallels in our own time. It's no secret that America has its problems with homelessness, medical care and starvation, even in a highly industrialized society, and the anti-terrorism propaganda has started to make this sort of nightmare situation look more possible over the last year. The Resistance takes these concepts to a more science-fiction extreme, but the basic underpinnings are in reality, which is the strongest element of the book.
Or second strongest, maybe, since the strongest element is probably the fantastic artwork by Santacruz, Portela and Mounts. The double-page splash of the city is amazing, and Santacruz puts a lot of detail into all the elements of the story, whether it's the various knick-knacks in the nurse's headdress or the little bits of litter that make the subway train seem more realistic. And his action sequences are fluid and exciting, maintaining the momentum of the chase that Gray and Palmiotti have set up and keeping the readers rocketing along like they're watching an action movie.
