The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson

It must be more difficult to write the first issue of a new ongoing series without a finish in mind than it is with a finish in mind. If you know the ultimate destination of the story you are offering, then I would think you can have a bit more confidence in knowing what's going to be important in the long run, and what can be thrown away if it's not working.

There are a few Vertigo series that spring to mind when I think of finite stories with strong openings are Sandman (well, the story was strong, even if the art left something to be desired), Y The Last Man, and Ennis' own Preacher. Transmetropolitan feels to me like an exception - I wasn't hooked from the first issue, mostly because the short hand used to throw us into the world of the character felt lifted almost wholesale from the real-life persona of Hunter S. Thompson. I have assumed that all of these titles were written with the end already in mind but Preacher, even at the time, felt like Garth Ennis had constructed a story that he could simply let his characters wander through, knowing that he could direct them towards a conclusion when necessary.

This new title is not a Vertigo title, but it sure feels like one. Maybe it's the two creators, perhaps best known for their Vertigo series, the aforementioned Preacher and Transmetropolitan. It's even easy to forget that their last collaboration was on a Marvel comic, Fury: Peacemaker. Wildstorm is not too far removed from Vertigo on some days, and this is one of those days.

I think that sometimes with a "pitch" book, and this feels like a pitch book (Powers with British Spies or James Bond, Agent of Vertigo), the writer finds it necessary to include some big ideas in the first issue, even when they might need a little breathing room. There are a handful of Vertigo standards upheld here: the British ex-pat, the ultra-violence, the dark humor, the slang, the superhero send-ups, and the sex. They do seem to be built on something, but in an introduction like this there were too many moments that felt like color-by-numbers "mature reader" material. Two of the three main characters are thrown right in to their roles as edgy protagonists, leaving you with only hints of who you should be rooting for in this bleak lineup. There is a third main character who is introduced in the first issue whose story is built in a careful manner, and even though the story includes the selfsame violence and humor, it is constructed in a logical, even believable manner. The character's grief and pain is confidently created. I can only hope that this strong handling of the material is the norm for the series, and that Ennis and Robertson can avoid the one-upsmanship that too frequently spoils the proceedings in these "mature readers" titles, and that Ennis, on his bad days tends to traffic in.

Note: Those quotes on "mature readers" are to indicate that the nomenclature is not mine, not to indicate that I feel that "mature readers" is an ironic statement (but...)