By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Ryan Bodenheim (artist), Michael Garland (colors) & Rus Wooton (letters)
The Story: Conspiracies, secrets, duplicity and some good, old-fashioned torture.
Review: [SPOILER WARNING] This issue does precisely what a #1 issue needs to do: Compel you to buy the second issue! That’s no small challenge in this comic market where despite pathetic sales (Avengers is selling under 60K issues/month), there is still a lot of product being produced. Comics are expensive and you don’t find any of the hardcore fans (with large pull lists) that aren’t looking to reduce the number of comics they read. That makes it a tall order for a new #1. It has to either demand that a fan adds marginal money/time to their monthly comics budget OR drop some other title. It’s Darwinian out there and I think Hickman has a potential winner!
The thing that pushes this comic into the “compelling” category is its hard edge. There’s nothing niftier about the conspiracies, motives and basic subject matter of this issue than a comic like Thief of Thieves #1. Both comic stories deal with theft and double crosses and both feature quality art, yet Secret should remain on more pull lists that ToT because of this hard edge. ToT is soft; Secret is hard.
Hickman wisely starts the action with a big hook: man held captive in his own home by mystery assailant. Who is this guy? What does he want? And most importantly, what is he going to do with the pliers? BOOM! Right there, the hook is set because the assailant is compelling. The reader wants to know what could this poor man could know that requires the use of pliers!
The assailant looms over the entire first issue. Later, when we learn that the tortured man has only kinda complied with his orders, you kinda flip out. You want to shake the dude and say, “Do you want THAT MAN to come back? Or come visit your daughter at college? My god man! Just do what he says!” It’s hard to get that gut-level, emotional reaction in a comic book, but Hickman nailed it here. He has us hooked for the period of time required to tell the first bit of the story in a way that he wouldn’t if he hadn’t used the pliers. Take away the pliers as a figurative representation of the limits the comic will go to and this comic goes into the “waiting for the trade” or (in this digital age) the “I’ll come back if people say it’s awesome” pile.
Now, the issue isn’t perfect. For one thing, is there a good-guy to root for? The villains seem much cooler than the victims. Hickman has played that to great effect before in Nightly News, so maybe it’ll work here too. But even in Nightly News, the bad guys were crusaders who had some good things to say. It isn’t clear that the bad guys in Secret are anything so high-minded. They could just be high-end burglars.
The other flaw in this issue is the telegraphed plot twist that the security firm was behind the pliers incident. That is a pretty sweet set-up: Break into a man’s home, use the pliers on him and them offer to sell him security services AND demand complete access to his computers and what-not (which is what pliers-man wanted). It was pretty obvious right away that the security firm had something to do with the pliers and the only real question was whether this “Grant Miller” or one of his partners would be revealed as the man with the pliers. It doesn’t spoil the issue in any large way, but it is disappointing because Hickman is one of the few writers who can really crank up his fastball for an “Oh shit! I didn’t see that coming at ALL!” Call it a missed opportunity.
The art is very well handled by Bodenheim. This isn’t the type of art that does a whole lot for me because I find it to be flat and lifeless, but any time I mention that on a message board I’m shouted at by 10 people going gaga over all the fine lines. So, it’s a style that lots of folks dig. From a basic standpoint, you cannot fault his storytelling. Comics like this are hard because it can be difficult to tell characters apart when there are no superhero costumes; you can’t exactly draw horns or green stripes on a room full of men in business suits! So, it’s no small achievement that you can identify all the characters. His linework also has a somber feel to it that fits the comic.
Love the coloring! It’s mostly just splashes of color on a panel. A panel where someone dies is red all over or perhaps everything in the panel is gray-tone but the assassin is colored red (gun and all). It’s an effective coloring technique and I wish more comics would go down this path rather than trying to color everything the exact color it would appear in nature.
Conclusion: The hook is set! Due to its skillful use of pliers and Hickman’s past track record, there’s no reason not to come back for the second issue. Violence and conspiracies are a powerful mix!
Grade: B+
-Dean Stell
Follow Dean on Twitter.
Grade
Conclusion