Red Spike is an action filled story that basically tells you to shut up and enjoy the ride. The two main characters have had their bodies altered so that they’re pumping max adrenaline at all times. With their built-in gauge they can check to see when they’re close to maxing out, which is a nice way of saying they can see when they’ll make their hearts explode. They’re not super humans per say, but they are pretty extraordinary. Their first mission begins with the infiltration of a terrorist facility. Their goal is to bring the place down with explosives. Everything is going very well, but the two men become more and more competitive as the mission continues. As they receive the all clear to leave, Greg decides to put on a little show and take out a group of terrorists before leaving. One of them gets a shot off on him and injuries him. Now the two men have only seconds to get out of the facility and are close to the end of their safe adrenaline levels.
This story is all rock. Two thirds of the book is just the mission and action with beautiful pages by Salvador Navarro. Every action sequence is intelligently drawn with crisp clean lines that keep the pages from being cluttered. The two men lack some in their design as they both look like Ken dolls with different color hair; otherwise their almost carbon copies of each other in height, hair and build. The art is very consistent, but in general looks a little out of date compared to other comics on the market. If the inking had more dynamics it would have given it a modern look, but instead it’s lined very lightly over the pencils in most parts.
The story is interesting, but the characters are none existent. Writer Jeff Cahn, does a good job of sprinkling information about Project Red Spike throughout the conversations with the two men and the control station monitoring them. The art isn’t drowned out by caption boxes explaining every detail of the world making the book easy to follow and understand. There is an attempt to make you care about the main character Greg who has done nothing but act like a shellfish jerk and that fails pretty miserably, but I’m sure they’ll build up his character in the next issue.
If you’re looking for a strong action title this is your book. It hits the ground running and never tries to stop. The best part is that it’s not a mindless action story, there’s actually very well thought out plot devices and an underlining mystery that’s happening admits all the action.
Score: 3/5