Never mind, it's not all bad news. 

The Order is a new ongoing series by Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson, and sees the first real attempt by Marvel to create an all-new superhero team coming out of Civil War.  A lot of characters have been mumbling about the Fifty State Initiative for a while, and it's mainly been an excuse to make jokes about Z-list heroes protecting Rhode Island. 

But California is a state that counts, and it's been light on superheroes ever since the West Coast Avengers folded.  So, naturally enough, Iron Man chooses it as the showpiece for his big scheme.

Instead of building a team from existing heroes, the Order has recruited decent, honest people from the general public, and trained them up as superheroes.  When they get the call to join the main roster, they're given superhuman powers.  But the physical stress of using these artificial powers means that they can only stay on the team for a year, and then they have to be retired.  Meanwhile, as the Initiative's showpiece project, the Order is the most image-conscious superhero team around, desperately to promote its collection of rookies as top notch superheroes to an understandably sceptical public.

Or to put it more succinctly, it's X-Statix crossed with Strikeforce Morituri.  But that's fine by me.  They're both good premises, and they go well together.

Having drawn that comparison, mind you, I should also make clear that The Order has none of the absurdism or oddball humour that X-Statix did (or that you might expect from some of Matt Fraction's other writing).  Imagine the premise of X-Statix played straight - which would always have been a perfectly viable series in its own right - and you get the idea.

Lurking in the background is an entirely separate high concept.  The team is supposed to be set up like the Greek pantheon, with each member taking the role of a different god.  So if the Athena figure dies, retires or gets fired, then she gets replaced by another Athena figure from the training ranks.  Judging from the Civil War discussion documents that Tom Brevoort has been posting on his blog, this series seems to have started life as a vague suggestion from Mark Millar that Marvel should bring back the Champions as an all-god team of superheroes. 

Clearly the concept has since changed beyond recognition, and bluntly, I think they'd have been better to do away with the god theme altogether.  The Olympian pantheon were not a team.  I doubt that many readers will have a clear idea of what function "Poseidon" or "Helios" are supposed to signify - I certainly haven't got a clue.  On the strength of the first issue, the pantheon concept seems to be just needless clutter in a series that's strong enough already.  Perhaps it'll provide some stability once the roster changes start, but at the moment, I suspect it's a hangover from an early draft that should have hit the cutting room floor.

Barry Kitson is a great artist for this book.  He's got the classic superhero lines that the Order ought to have - after all, that's what they're trying to be.  But at the same time, he's got the subtleties of character and body language to sell the details of Fraction's dialogue, and to convey how some of these heroes are really just playing the role.

Most of the first issue focusses on Anthem, the team leader.  He's a great creation - a thoroughly decent man, with reasonable real-world credentials for inspirational leadership, who finds himself expected to play a Superman figure.  Unable to remember the real names of his ever-changing teammates, and entirely conscious of his lack of credentials in the field, Anthem feels like someone you want to root for.  Kitson draws him perfectly, altering between a classic superhero archetype, and a guy who looks a little awkward in his cape. 

Some people may have expected Fraction to produce a book that was a little more off the wall, and they might be disappointed.  You can also make a fair case that this first issue is trying to fit in way too much material, with cast swaps in the middle of the book, a villain wandering around, and so forth.  But despite that, this is a good little superhero book, with a neat concept, and - unusually, in these miserable and gratuitously depressing times - a team who actually come across as nice guys.  It's not the best first issue ever, but it does a lot to convince me that The Order could be a great comic in a couple of months time when it really hits its stride.

Rating: A-

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