Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Review: Savage Things #1

By Andy Frisk
March 1, 2017 - 16:33

Justin Jordan (The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Dark Gods) and Ibrahim Moustafa (Jaeger, High Crimes) team up for Savage Things, the sharp new series from DC Comics' Vertigo imprint about psychopaths culled from their parents as children and trained to be U.S. black ops operatives. What could go wrong? Plenty.

With a truly frightening concept, Savage Things, pulls no punches and scares the hell out of you while at the same time excellently executing some great John Wick style action and gun play. Abel, obviously one of the most successful students to come out of the Black Forest project-which was created to train psychopaths with no empathy or remorse to "sow discord and fear in those who would do us (the U.S.) harm," now years out of the abandoned project, is recruited by U.S. government operatives to help them stop a Hannibal Lecter-level crime committing criminal with dubious ties to the defunct project. The re-recruitment process is a tough one though, as the Black Forest operatives are far beyond the best at what they do...

Justin Jordan has come up with a smart and truly frightening concept for what looks to be Vertigo Comics' best new miniseries. Taunt pacing and excellent character development, the kind that talented artist Ibrahim Moustafa brings to brilliantly subtle and frighteningly dramatic life through facial expression and body language, mix with excellent, almost cinematic, gun play/spy op action choreography to make for one of the best first issues of a mini series published yet this year. From the introduction of the series' main protagonist as a child, through his early days in the Black Forest project, to his days as a mature and talented killer, Jordan and Moustafa don't waste a single panel or page. Each one deserves to be poured over visually, over the course of multiple readings, to soak in the full effect of this issue's impact.

Striking, startling, and beautifully brilliant and tight from its first panel to it's last page, Savage Things #1 is a top of the monthly reading stack book.

Rating: 10 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12