Cheetah & Cheshire Rob the Justice League #4 // Review
It’s a huge operation. Normally something of this size would take a small army of field agents and support people to carry-off successfully. As it is, it’s just a few of them trying to break into the facility for the purposes of a burglary. And it’s not just that it’s a highly secure facility...it’s a highly secure facility in space that happens to be the central hub for all of Earth’s most powerful heroes. The operation officially begins in Cheetah & Cheshire Rob the Justice League #4. Writer Gregg Rucka begins to reach the climax of his series with artist Nicola Scott and colorist Annette Kwok.
There’s a kind of a big issue with the facility. It’s something that they notice as the time of the break-in draws near. The Cheetah says that she can handle the teleport to the Justice League Watchtower. The thing is...the speific tim that they’ve arranged for the break-in happens to feature Wonder Woman as captain of the watch. She and the Cheetah have a bit of a long history together. If the two of them run-into each other, it could blow the whole operation wide open in a big way.
Rucka does a respectable job of outlining the situation and tensions that surrounding the operation at a rather crucial point in any heist fiction. This is the last moment before the thing actually gets underway. And so there's going to be a lot of stress about various elements that come into play. The author even manages to do a pretty good job of illustrating some of the unique issues with breaking into an orbital facility. Granted, it's really remarkably over simplified. But it's a lot of fun to see how well balanced it all is under the power of Rucka’s writing.
So much of the story is brought across in simple dramatic moments. These could be very difficult to bring across with any kind of intensity on the page. Thankfully, Scott does a striking job of delivering the more intimate interpersonal drama that's going on in the course of the issue while also keeping a firm perspective on the pulp science fiction end of things as an orbital space station featuring superheroes begins to spring into action. All of the characters look very distinct and really come across like they're all in the middle of something else completely that has nothing to do with what's going on in the issue. That's kind of difficult to manage with a peripheral ensemble that as huge as this particular issue’s is.
Theoretically, something like this could actually take a couple of years to bring across with the kind of detail that it really deserves. Heist fiction is a lot of fun. But it's very difficult to bring across the complexity of it in sequential art without over simplifying things to a great degree. And so it feels a little rushed. However, that actually plays really well into the pacing of a story that Rucka seems remarkably well-poised to deliver.
