Seven Soldiers of Victory #0

DC Comics
Seven Soldiers of Victory #0
By Hervé St.Louis
May 13, 2005 - 07:32

DC Comics
Writer(s): Grant Morrison
Penciller(s): J.H. Williams III
Cover Artist(s): J.H. Williams III

The Seven Soldiers of Victory is a multi chapter epic published by DC Comics and entirely written by acclaimed writer Grant Morrison. Morrison claims that it is a study of the super hero genre. The old Soldiers of Victory team have inspired this story from the 1940s where second string characters banded together and fought crime. In this story an acquaintance of the Spider assembles a new team of Soldiers to fight a giant, you guessed it, spider.

Each member of the team is a symbol of the traditional super hero super team, playing its part. You’ve got the damsel in distress, the vigilante, the kid, the spooky guy, the loser. This chapter is the first one, and although the ending was predictable from ten miles away, I didn’t see it coming. Morrison does what he excels at which is putting a new spin on tired ideas. Here he does it with strong dialogues.

Williams is a versatile artist. Able to capture the Vertigo house style of DC Comics’ mature imprint, while adding some Western grit in the desert sequence. It almost seems like we’re dealing with an artist for each sequence. Unfortunately, Williams’ strong artwork often looks stiff. It’s as if we were looking a t a photomontage. The characters don’t look lively in action poses. For an action series, it’s not good at all.