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With Transmetropolitan out
of the way, a whole load of new Warren Ellis projects are on
the way. And the first of them is the twelve-issue
miniseries Global Frequency.
The Global Frequency is a secret worldwide
rescue agency with a thousand agents, who are called up when
necessary to prevent bizarre world-ending catastrophes from
happening. It's a nice high-concept idea, and an
interesting inversion of the usual conspiracy formula for
underground organisations. The Global Frequency are a
benevolent secret organisation, and it's probably time for one
of those again.
The format for this series, as I understand
it, is a series of self-contained issues, each with a
different artist. That means the first issue has the
difficult task of (a) introducing the concept, (b) introducing
the characters, and enough Global Frequency members to
illustrate the concept, (c) introducing and explaining a
threat which is interesting in itself, and (d) working as a
breakneck one-act action story, all in the course of 22 pages.
That's a hell of a lot to cram in.
Ellis manages to get it all in
there, and technically it's an impressive piece of work simply
for doing so. The book might have benefitted from one or
two extra pages to give it a little more breathing space, but
then again the ultra-tight plotting is part of what the book
is aiming for. On average the book seems to cut to
another scene, or cut between scenes, about every two panels
or so.
Artist Garry Leach doesn't do
entire comics very often, which is a shame. This script
is a challenge for any artist, with the rapid cutting breaking
up panel-to-panel storytelling. Not to mention that it
includes a car chase, which notoriously tend not to work in
comics (presumably because they're inexpressive lumps of metal
and it's really difficult to get the sense of movement on the
page). Leach manages it all and makes it look
effortless.
This isn't high intellectual
stuff, it's just a blindingly fast thriller story introducing
an intriguing concept. Fun.
Rating: A-
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