Red 5 Comics 2017
Created by Hayley Nitz
Written by Jai & Hayley Nitz
Illustrated by Jethro Morales
Coloured by Marie Enger
Lettered by Chris Crank
Everyone knows Adolf Hitler died at the end of WWII just before the Russian Army entered Berlin. But what if everyone was wrong? 1945, the closing days of the European front, and Hitler has a plan to send his remaining forces to South America while he fakes his death to give himself time. Time to begin again. And no one knows. No one but two allied service men who are about to start the greatest chase in history…
Well I will say this much I thought the description was intriguing enough to give the first issue a go. Hayley being a High School Senior and with help from Uncle Jai have written a story that both feels like the result of a school project as well as a very intriguing and plausible action thriller. I’m pretty darn impressed and think that this has an extreme amount of potential. Already the collaboration is productive as the structure of the book, it’s pacing and how it allows the reader into this world is extremely well done.
Then there are the characters and the characterisation. While they don’t really sound like they are from this era, they sound much modern in their use of language and speech patterns that’s okay nothing is ever truly perfect. We do however get some really good use of character development and characterisation so that we can get to know and understand the main players here. I like the pair that are off on their mission to find Hitler. There’s this great budding comedic duo thing happening here that is refreshing and takes the total seriousness of the subject matter out. Honestly while this may only be four issues it already shows the potential to be successful even further than that with Alex and Conner at the helm.
Oh Jethro, I’m sorry I love the name Jethro and kudos to his folks for naming him that it’s great name with a throwback and garners someone to say I wanna know this person. While most of the work he’s done is for Dynamite I am in love with his work here. His rendition of Adolf and Eva and the way he presents their looks is absolutely incredible. He’s got this magnificent eye for storytelling as the use of page layouts with their angles and perspectives demonstrate. So I’d like to see more backgrounds in play here there are moments when you see the panel is blank it has a quality that feels right but then the coloured ones yeah those need filling in.
I’m impressed I really am this is extremely interesting and highly entertaining and full of both historical references and accuracies, the German troops surrendering to our duo in the hopes of avoiding the Soviet troops and their camps was a splendid nod to factual history. I love how the death scene plays out I think that’s a brilliant stroke of genius right there and while somewhat cliché it works superbly.
I was surprised by how fast and easy this was to read. Before I knew it the book was over and I was disappointed. I wanted more and that’s a sure fire signal that this is much better and stronger than you initially thought. I think that underestimating this one is going to be the wrong thing to do and it also reaffirms my belief that everyone needs to be reading more independents rather than blindly follow the same old same old, that frustrates the heck out of you.
Strong, interesting and full of potential and promise this is one you’ll thank me for!