Shades of Vengeance 2018
Written by Ed Jowett & Jennifer Martin
Illustrated by Rahmat Wisnubroto
Lettered by Johnathan Lewis
Being a lone hero seems easy initially, but when the police hate you and supervillains are running around, who can you turn to help? Despite working to prove herself through stopping crimes all over the city, the police still frown on her activities as the masked vigilante Violete. Even so, all is going fairly well until one of the criminals she has caught before escapes from prison.
I have said it before and I will say it again sometimes being a review site gives me the opportunity to find companies and creators that I would otherwise have no idea existed. More so when you see the kind of potential that I see here in this book. Is it perfect, no not by any means but it has enough bones in it to grab the attention, see it’s potential and want to know more. Ironically one of the things that can be seen as a detractor I see as a positive.
That is the fact that there is a lot going on here and we’re jumping into the deep end blind. This not only establishes Viola as a heroine and shows off the fact that the local coppers don’t like having her here, well not all of them anyway, and begins to flesh her our for the reader while still keeping us wondering what the heck is going on. So for me the way this is structured is pretty well done. Think of this as an introduction to an established character but no so established that she’s a welcome sight. So it is very much filled with those annoying, how did she get her powers, what event led her down this path and why on Earth would she choose a name so close to her own? All of which I am sure will be answered as the series continues to progress. In the meantime it is fun to see a character trying to figure it out on their own and not being able to have anywhere to turn.
I am hoping that this is set in England otherwise the whole Underground Station has me in the wrong frame of mind. Also I hope this means that perhaps we will also get to see more slang terminology in use so that it feels a lot more European than American in nature. The mystery’s that abound within these pages are nicely done. While I believe that at least one isn’t there to harm her but find a way to help her or offer her a job on a team or some such could still be in play here.
I feel like this is a computer generated book and as such is the work of someone giving this all they have. They don’t have the finesse or fine touches that we are used to seeing or that are capable in today’s software and experience. Faces and how they change in different angles needs some monitoring. If this is computer generated then there really isn’t an excuse for the lack of backgrounds that we see and there should be more to really flesh out the story, the city, the scenery and show off the bigger picture. I do like the way page layouts are being utilised and how we see the different angles and perspective in the panels.
With more work on the characterisation and transitioning from scene to scene we will see a lot more smoothness to them than what we see now. That will come with more experience and that I can see where the story is going but needs smoothing out to make it work better well that’s to be expected. I like what I am seeing, warts and all, and it shows a lot of promise. I like the idea behind her and what she represents. The old school ideology of the police not accepting masked heroes who operate outside the law goes back to when heroes had to really go that extra mile and figure out how to operate and maintain a secret identity which is extremely hard.
Everything about this shows off its potential there is a whole line of books from these folks and I’ll provide the link so you can check em out for yourself. Still do yourself a favour check em out because this is what the future looks like.
http://www.shadesofvengeance.com/