The Red Ten has had an interesting journey. It was independently released before heading to Diamond which reset the book in a way. I point that out because I’ve been following this book almost since the beginning and so sometimes I forget. I forget just how fucking good this series is. This issue in particular is the one we’ve been waiting for. It doesn’t have all the answers, but it’s a revealing issue that makes the previous five rewarding. Here’s the catch though, this issue also recaps the previous five and is very friendly to new readers. This is a ten issue series so I don’t say that lightly.
I’m reluctant to say anything about the issue at all because there’s so much potential to spoil the story. That’s how heavy this issue is. What little wiggle room I have I’ll use to talk about the opening and give you one spoiler that isn’t much of one if you’ve been paying attention to the plot. It opens in the past with Red aka the dead woman that kicked off the story. She’s meeting with Justice America and telling him that she’s investigated the entire Alliance and found every one of them to be rotten to the core. Justice America asks what she’s found on him, but she says that everything came up boy scout, but did it?
Tyler James delivers a picture perfect issue. The story is so tight that even telling you that little bit spoiled a hair of it. Guess how much I actually recapped? Technically four panels as I couldn’t even recap the full conversation. I can’t think of another issue I’ve read recently that was that sound in the story. Aside from the overall structure of the story, the dialogue is there. It’s so spot-on that you can really tell which DC character James was going for, his characterizations are that good.
It’s rare that you get to watch an artist grow as much as Cesar Feliciano has done with this series. Again, the amount of time that has pass on this series since it began is a bit longer than most widely distributed comics, but just the leap from issue five to issue six is astounding. Feliciano has a great style, but in the beginning you could tell that he was rough around the edges. Now, you could put him on any superhero title and he would nail it. As I said with James’ writing you could tell which DC characterization he was going for with the dialogue. Well with Feliciano I had to do a double take because at times I had to remind myself that this wasn’t the Justice League. In particular a scene in which one character incapacitates most of the remaining members of the Alliance is practically a classic JLA scene.
I know it sounds crazy to say that with four issue left that this issue is a good place to jump on board, but again James has put a lot of effort into making it that way. This is the kick off to the second story arc and the decent down the mountain. If you’re still not convinced you can pick up the trade for the first volume which is also out now, but either way you need to be reading this series.
Score: 5/5
Writer: Tyler James Artist: Cesar Feliciano Publisher: ComixTribe Price: $3.99 Release Date: 6/25/14 Format: Mini-Series, Print/Digital