Red Team Season One (2014) Review

redteam7658An elite team of police officers called the Red Team take the law into their own hands and begin a plan to eliminate the untouchable criminals. People familiar with Garth Ennis have probably heard this tale before and for fans of the Hard Boiled genre have also seen this reenactment. What makes this stand out is Garth Ennis confessional style of storytelling. This story is being told to anonymous interrogators. This is an interesting approach because the reader can easily slide into our surrogate interrogators. They are even asking the protagonist questions which are no doubt swimming around in our mind. Then what happen, why did they do that, what is the connection, and so on. Because the protagonists are shooting the story straight, this plot device makes the reader feel they are playing their own part in the story. Furthermore, since this is told from a confession perspective, the story becomes a slow burning character building story arc. We often see this story told from a singular perspective and the pacing is too quick to understand how or why a person who enforces the law could slip down into the lawless path. Because this is told from two point-of-views, we get to see how people can justify the end. Although the development of the story is a slow burn, the action sequences are slick and brutal. The art never allows the gore and violence to stand in the way of the movement and pacing. Regrettably, the rest of the art becomes tediously repetitive. For example, each character has a permanent scowl on their face. The background and foreground lack any clear depth and is particularly noticeable in any wide panel shots. This could easily be due to the colorist because the b&w sketches at the back of each issue show more depth and detail than their final illustration. Hopefully, in future issues this will become a little more polished. Otherwise, they should leave the comic in black and white. Although the action scenes are impressive, this is a character focused story and the lack of detail between the actions scenes makes my hands want to skip the part that makes this story unique.

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