Salvation Run #1

Salvation Run #1 (DC – WIllingham / Chen / Wong) – DC’s take – “Don’t miss the stunning debut issue of a 7-part miniseries written by Bill Willingham (SHADOWPACT, FABLES) with art by superstar Sean Chen (Iron Man, X-Men: The End) and Walden Wong (COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY, DAY OF VENGEANCE)! The world has finally had enough of the villains of the DCU — so they’re exiling the evildoers to another planet, where they’ll be left to their own diabolical devices! Who will thrive…and who will survive?” The self-proclaimed guardians of the DCU, Checkmate, has figured out a way to use Boomtube technology to take captured super-powered criminals and send them to a planet far, far away. They have tongue-in-cheek called the planet “Salvation”.  This issue, while getting the thumbs up,  falls to what is knows as “The Introduction Syndrome”, tons of set-up and very little “going anywhere”. We follow a set of five Flash Rogues (also known as the first wave) as they try to survive on this planet that Checkmate has scanned and explored and deemed “harmless”. The kicker is, that by the time the first wave gets there, some mysterious watcher-types have activated all sorts of deathtraps and planted natural flora and fauna to act as natural enemies and predators to our now abandoned villains. At every turn, they are faced with new dangers and new life-threatening challenges.  The five members of the first wave are barely holding themselves together by the time the second wave shows up, consisting of the approximate two dozen villains that crashed the Green Arrow / Black Canary wedding (including big names such as Joker, Clay-Face, Mr. Freeze and Cheetah). The reader just begins to see the treasure of this series, which is how these super-villain egos are going to interact and vie for leadership, as the issue closes. Willingham’s storytelling shines through the dialogue and interaction of the characters as he sets up the tale to come. Given how much lettering  and how many characters there are here, both Chen and Wong get gold stars for being able to lay out the scenes without anything seeming crowded.

Grade: A-

Please follow and like us: