Ah, Russia.  An interesting location if ever there was one.  There are fascinating stories to tell about the place.  Years of continuous upheaval make for plenty of story material.

Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon's Winter Men is the latest book to take a crack at modern Moscow.  Actually, according to Lewis' interviews, this is "the first Winter Men" series, so presumably he's angling for a sequel.  (With the amount that WildStorm books usually sell these days, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were him.)

Kris Kalenov is a freelance soldier who used to be a Russian supersoldier.  He seems to have flown around in some sort of Iron Man-style armour, although it has to be said that you'd be doing pretty well to extract that information from the comic itself rather than the promotional materials.  Anyhow, in the brave new post-Cold War world, there's not much call for supersoldiers, so Kalenov is making a living doing work for the corrupt mayor of Moscow. 

In the manner of such stories, this leads him into a conspiracy the details of which temporarily escape me.  It's one of those stories where lots of hints are dropped, and at the end of the issue you stop and think, "Hold on, what was that about again?"  Basically, a kid's been kidnapped and the people in charge want to get her back, but why everyone cares so much is a bit of a mystery.  You know the routine.

It's one of those odd stories which is nominally a superhero/thriller hybrid, but doesn't actually do anything with its superhero elements.  On the strength of this issue, it's hard to see what the sci-fi aspects are adding at all, to be honest.  You could have done essentially the same story with conventional ex-soldiers, and this issue, at least, would barely have changed beyond the opening flashback pages.

But the set-up is interesting.  Rather than being a lone gunman down on his luck, Kalenov is part of a whole subculture of out-of-work soldiers, who find plenty of private customers for their (often entirely legitimate) services in a Moscow where the crime rate is through the roof.  They're people whose purpose in life has been yanked out from under them by the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and who have settled into an acceptable but distinctly more mediocre niche in the new scheme of things.

It's been a while since I've seen art by John Paul Leon, but this issue is in a very different style from what I remember.  The heavy shadows are lifted, and instead it's left to the colourist to give the book its grimly muted appearance.  The art varies from striking through to slightly cluttered, with the occasional over-detailed background leaving you wondering where to look.  He nails the character perfectly, though, giving him the appropriate sense of battered dignity.

Overall, an interesting premise, and a slightly less interesting actual comic, thanks to a rather dense and studious tone that makes it feel at times like reading a textbook.  But at least it's a textbook about something intriguing, and it gets points for that.

Rating: B+

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