BACK ON THE REVIEW TRAIN

Take a week off and the pile begins to get out of hand. What’s a poor bastard to do?

INTIMIDATORS #1
Written by Neil Kleid and Drawn by Miguel Montenegro
Published by Image Comics

I’ve been curious about this one since I first heard it announced. Kleid is a talented creator, and certainly has the ability to take this concept (which is sort of “what if you put Superman or Captain America in a group of super-assholes like The Authority?”) and run with it. And while this opening salvo shows promise, the pacing of the story doesn’t quite let Kleid stretch his wings.

The Intimidators are the supergroup of last resort for the American government, the ones they call on when absolutely no one else is available or when the threat level is so high that it requires a ludicrous bunch of idiots to solve the problem. The most competent of the group is Crash, a super-strong and super-fast fellow who also has a tendency to pass out in the middle of missions from the use of his powers. Then there’s Fetish, a homicidal teleporter who spends her off-hours as a dominatrix. Limit, another teleporter, who’s a bit of a pussy. And Firepower, an armored British drunkard. Quite the motley crew. The last member of the cast, Astroman, doesn’t show up until the final page, so basically, this issue is pure set-up and display, with the real plot to follow later.

Threatening the world this time around is a mafia goon with a nuclear weapon armed in downtown Detroit. Backing up his ploy is the goon’s robot mafia, so there are plenty of bad guys for the Intimidators to beat up on. The entire battle sequence is insanely over-the-top, and it does give Kleid a couple of moments in which to have his fun; Fetish’s treatment of a Mafioso opponent is a snicker-worthy exercise in black humor. But mainly, it exists to show us what these lunatics can do, because it will balance against the future behavior of Astroman. Fair enough. You have to get to the point where your story really begins.

Montenegro’s art serves the story well, eschewing fancy layouts and clipped poses in order to keep the story flowing in an organic fashion. That’s certainly a happy and satisfactory development. And again, there are some darkly amusing moments that kept my head in it along the way. I suppose what I’m saying is that INTIMIDATORS #1 didn’t quite give me what I was expecting out of the gate, but that doesn’t necessarily rank as a bad thing. I found plenty enough here to make me want to settle in and give it the time to grow that I think it needs.

/Mason