War Wolf #1 // Review
Bruin has been through a lot over the years. Never really fit-into any kind of life, lifestyle or career. He more or less totally defines the classic stereotype of the Generation X slacker from school to a string of low-level jobs to his arrival as a security officer in 1984. Fate has a strange way of working for those without direction. Bruin is about to get a meeting with fate overnight in War Wolf #1. Writer Steve Orlando opens a promising new series with artist Marco Perugini and colorist Pascal Tora. Classic ci-fi action gets a cleverly skewed treatment in a fun new series.
Bruin’s one of three guys at the warehouse the night. the aliens arrive. They’re menacing with devastating tech, but they don’t exactly have a full understanding of where they are as they wandr around an empty space after hours. The three guards don’t exactly have anything to lose but their lives if they engage them. Bruin’s the one guy who seems crazy enough to try to defend the warehouse in the face of certain death. And he’s only making minimum wage, but he’s willing to risk it all. And the funny thing is...he might just be able to overpower the first sign of invasion with sheer fearlessness alone.
Though there have been occasional four days into this type of thing, the security guard has been generally a minor supporting character in most action adventure series. So it's fun to see a close-up on a character who is just a peripheral NPC in most cases. That guy you see out of the corner of the panel turns out to be a major demon. And largely because of his own stupidity. But that doesn't mean he's not efficient. That doesn't mean he's not effective. That doesn't mean he isn't going to experience some kind of strange miracle in his own survival. Orlando has a really clever approach here. And it will be interesting to see where he takes it in issues to come.
Perugini straps the rendering of any access detail. It's all very simple. There's some very heavy inking. Of course, this is a third shift overnight at a warehouse in 1984. So there really isn't much detail necessary. It feels very much inspired by some of the classic superhero comic book art of the 1980s. It all seems to hit the page with a clever sense of dynamic action. And above all Bruin comes across as a perfectly normal guy who happens to be fearless enough to do totally crazy and heroic things. That can be a difficult thing to manage in the art style in question. Perugini and Tora brilliantly nail the balance between normal-guy-action and superhero action with.
Anyone who has ever worked third shift security in a warehouse space knows what a restless experience it can be. Invariably you're going to have thoughts and hallucinations about the possibility of something really happening. It's fun to see Orlando and Company coming up with an actual situation under these circumstances to open a series about a normal guy who will evidently lead a whole bunch of other normal people in defending off an alien invasion. Sounds like a fun idea.
