Redcoat #15 // Review
Simon Pure is alive and well and living at the dawn of the 20th century. Like anyone else who might be immortal, he’s decided to open a new chapter in his life. He’s stumbled into the life of a tailor. It’s good work. Must pay quite well fiven the state of his home life. A wife. Two kids. A nice home. A new name. (They’re calling him Simon Plum now.) And so he started over. And maybe things are perfectly peaceful now. Of course, when you're immortal, they're going to be things that keep popping up, aren't there? This is exactly what he finds in Redcoat #15. Writer Geoff Johns and artist Bryan Hitch continue the adventures of an immortal from the era of the American Revolution in a cozy, little casually dramatic chapter.
He's just settling in after work when there's a knock on the door. There's someone on the other side. Someone who he last saw as a very young child. This is Albert Einstein. These all grown up. Has a mustache now. Not quite as old as he will come to look in the pictures from his later life. But there's a small matter of something which has popped up again. And maybe Albert wouldn't be coming to visit him or not for the fact that there was something sinister afoot. It's something from their past. And it's something that's going to need to be dealt with.
Johns is doing a character study for what feels like a sequel. It's really interesting to see the whole thing move the way it does. Because though it's a full issue of establishing Simon and where he is at this stage in the history of the world, it's really interesting that it doesn't really feel like all it's doing is setting up another chapter. Because that's really all it's doing. Johns has developed such a charming character that it's just kind of fun to see where he is at this stage in history. And it's a good starting point for a lot of people who might not otherwise be familiar with the character. Because all that's in the past is in the past. And this is the establishment of a whole new conflict.
Hitch has a very indispensable approach to simple drama. There's a great deal of charm in the way he's tackling this particular end of the 20th century. Granted, it feels a little sanitized. We're not seeing the people who are really struggling at this point in history. And it does seem at least a little weird that is somebody who's just a minor Taylor would be living in Dutch ambulance. It's not a mansion or anything like that. But the work that hitch is putting to the page really does feel very comfortable and cozy. And one gets the feeling that it's just a little bit more clean than it probably would have been in a major city back then. It's a certified cozy Norman Rockwell sort of a thing. The feeling of the world at the dawn of the 20th century. It looks nice, though. And there's no question that it's been meticulously researched. The way everything looks. The way everything moves. It feels very authentic.
The authenticity and the genuineness of the emotion feels infectious. Anyone with a modern view of history is going to know that there were people who are suffering like you would not believe just outside of the center of the panel. But that's not really where the center of the story lies. This is a story of heroes of history. And so it's going to have more of a heroic note to it. It's going to sanitize things just a little bit. And that's perfectly OK because it's totally consistent with what they're bringing to the page. It's just almost a little too nice to feel totally comfortable.
