Faithless #1 Review
ACB gets an advanced look at a new comic that you can support on Kickstarter. Take a look to see what we think of Faithless #1 by Jim Vargas!
Faithless #1
In a world ravished by a war between angels and demons, Alish is a hybrid angel/human creature. In her work in the secret police for New Jericho City, she’s often chasing down demons who are terrorizing the population. However, as of late, she’s been struggling with two things: 1. A loss of faith about the existence (or at least the caring) of God and 2. A fluctuating power set that often finds the criminals she’s chased down killed before she can question them about a larger threat which gets her into a little hot water from her superiors. When she comes across a major demon player, her powers fluctuate again, but with an added feature – a voice telling her to kill.
There are a great deal of things in this project that Jim Vargas that I liked quite a bit. First, there’s a story that’s larger than just this first issue. In fact, the story is told from flashback. We see Alish, at the beginning looking at the ruins of the world and discussing how things got to this point. That’s an excellent way to get us invested. Give us something visual we can hold onto that is an end result of something that we don’t know. So there’s a definite solid foundation for this story that’s simple and easy to understand. The entry point for people giving this a try is a huge plus for this project.
And then there’s our main character, Alish. Here’s a character that seems to have a ton of experience, yet kind of plays things off a little more cavalier and not always as deadly serious as we tend to see main female characters in comics – particularly when they are handled by men. Vargas does well to not give us too much about her too quickly. He lets some things play out and grow on their own. All too often, a writer would introduce elements about a character with bad ass traits and qualities too quickly. Within a couple pages we learn all about his/her thoughts on life, thoughts on the opposite sex, and general personality traits that rarely grow or evolve. All this just to get to the character’s next opponent to beat up or shoot. Instead, Vargas gives us panels of what Alish’s life is like. She has cybernetic limbs and a boyfriend (who happens to be a demon). Vargas definitely takes the time to give us an insight into this character so we have a chance to get to know her a little bit before she is thrust into battle. Overall, that definitely helps Vargas sell Alish onto us as an audience.
While I can’t really speak for the art of this book, as I’ve only see the layouts prior to the finishes, there are some pages that have already been penciled fully and ready for inking. On those pages, there’s some nice eye candy. I’m not talking about Alish per ce. She’s not entirely played as an over sexualized being. Instead, there are great shots of scenery and some really cool character works. I can’t wait to see what the finish project will look like since there are all sorts of different monsters and creatures.
What I can say is that this book has a very solid start. It’s interesting and is a nice meld of some different feels. The first thing I thought of was that this book reminded me a lot of what you might see if Zenescope decided to create a James Bond like female character in their popular Grimm Fairy Tales universe. It’s got the makings of being able to build its own world and an opportunity to be a very good read.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Solid premise, likable lead character. Set up to build story along the way. | Not too much to say negatively. It’s a good outing for Vargas. |
| Rating |
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