Tuesday, December 16, 2008

INCOGNITO by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips





One of the new mini-series I'm most looking forward to in the upcoming months is CRIMINAL and SLEEPER creators Brubaker and Phillips' INCOGNITO.



As described here http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19180 Brubaker points out INCOGNITO is the flipside to the very good SLEEPER from a few years back.



SLEEPER displayed a world where superhuman individuals took the inevitable steps in their moral and ethical paths toward compromising their humanity. Like anyone working for a massive intelligence/organization, there's the distinct probability of betrayal and espionage, which SLEEPER delved into heavily. The only problem I had with SLEEPER was incorporating "WildStorm" characters (which is a DC imprint blah blah I don't care) into the story, seemingly out of nowhere and to no real purpose, even if indeed the story takes place in that universe. I just didn't care about the context. But the initial half of the series concerning just the hardass protagonist Holden Carver and his criminal cohorts like Miss Misery, Genocide Jones (loved him) and Peter Grimm is the meat I most enjoyed. I guess this portion was referred to as "Season One", for some reason. Which is fine, because the series was great. Both "Seasons" of it.



As mentioned in the above article, INCOGNITO concerns what happens when a supervillain type has to live like a schlub, just like everybody else. He has to, or he's a dead man, because he ratted out this guy, The Black Death...yeh, I'd hide too







Sean Phillips is one of my favorite artists these days. He's got that gritty Dave Mazzuchelli thing going and his action scenes are crisp and clear. He and Brubaker also get on together quite well. They're a cute couple. We should all be so lucky to have talent on talent like these gents. Brubaker, for his part, is still knocking out fantastic espionage-heavy CAPTAIN AMERICA comics with the hero of the book still dead, two years after the fact. If, like me, when you read a lot of modern superhero comics you feel like you've been drinking out of the toilet, try out CAP. I haven't even begun to read his DAREDEVIL stuff but I've heard it's wang chung.



INCOGNITO will be skull crushing you and me just after the new year. Can't wait!

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