Once were brothers, now they are enemies. They are the men of the Red Spike program, and their lives are only getting worse. Meanwhile, the government conspiracies are just getting worse and worse, and there is soon to be blood on the grounds of one of America’s greatest national monuments.
I wonder what Comics Bulletin’s Shot for Shot squad would think of this comic, since it’s very clearly designed to read like a summer action movie blockbuster. There’s action, suspense, a nasty government conspiracy or two and, of course, enough scheming and back-biting to do any movie proud.
At the center of it are two men, brothers and best friends who have been injected by the Red Spike drug that has made them amazingly strong, agile and tough, perhaps at the cost of their friendship, their loved ones and their sanity.
Yeah, it reads like a summer movie blockbuster, which seems totally appropriate for a book that released on 4th of July week, when you’ll go see terrible shit like Transformers at the movies, just to escape the heat. The good thing is that this comic is, unlike Transformers, pretty damn good really.
The core of this book lies with its characters, who consistently take actions that surprise the reader a bit. Colonel Moyer’s actions at the beginning of the issue are not what I would have expected, while the actions of the doctor have the potential to give her great harm and hurt her terribly.
It’s these bits of humanity that help make this comic so compelling. We can get action anywhere – and this issue has plenty of interesting action – but it’s the characters, nicely depicted by Cahn and Navarro, that give this book its soul. Hey, you know, maybe Red Spike is not quite like a blockbuster summer movie. It actually has interesting characters, not stupid robots that turn into stuff.
Jason Sacks has been obsessed with comics for longer than he’d like to remember. He considers himself a student of comics history and loves delving into obscure corners of this crazy artform. Jason has been writing for this site for about seven years and has also been published in a number of fan publications, including the late, lamented Amazing Heroes and The Flash Companion. He lives in north Seattle with his wife and three kids and works for a large technology company.