That’s an exciting cover from illustrator Clayton Henry and colourist Marcelo Maiolo, with Power Girl, Green Lantern Simon Baz and Cyborg fighting a Transformer-style Red Tornado. Inside the comic? No such scene.
Let’s be kind and call it symbolic, because while there’s no physical confrontation with Reddy, the other heroes do have words. Last month we saw Peege and Simon summoned to partake in an off-grid secret mission which Reddy assured them was vital to the safety of Earth. After fulfilling Reddy’s request, though, the pair got a terrible shock, and now they want answers.
This month we see that while Simon and Karen were on their dodgy mission, Titan Victor Stone, Cyborg, was recovering a ‘stolen’ quantum semiconductor from a facility in Taiwan. A well-guarded facility.
But on his way to deliver the goods to Reddy, Victor also got a nasty surprise.
At Reddy’s secret base, the Red Tower, all four heroes confront their supposed leader with his lies and are told a convoluted story about how they weren’t seeing the bigger picture; the robot really did have to be destroyed, and the semiconductor was vital and…
This is great stuff, DC announced Justice League Red as being about a black ops team run by Reddy, but writer Saladin Ahmed immediately subverted expectations in the debut issue. DC hadn’t lied, but there’s a lot more to the story as we’re slowly, but satisfyingly, finding out. This time we hear how announced member Red Canary, who wasn’t around last time, fits into proceedings – well, if Reddy is telling the truth. And there’s still no sign of final member-to-be Deadman. Next month, maybe.
For now we get plenty of well-choreographed action and such fun interactions as Simon trying not to feel intellectually inferior to cyber-savant Vic and computer genius Karen… yes, this really is classic Power Girl, not just confident and quick to anger, but smart as the smartest of whips.
There’s also a nice moment when Vic insists to Simon that despite being artificially created, Reddy is a person; and it seems Cyborg has a theory about why the League’s whirlwind-turned-computer-janitor is acting so weirdly.
Accompanying Ahmed’s smart story there’s more attractive art from Clayton Henry, who gives us a seriously slick Cyborg. Simon, while he never takes off his balaclava-like mask, is yet full of expression. As for Karen, again, this is the heroine I love, not the drip from the recent Power Girl series. The confident face and body language are perfect… now, if only Henry would tweak the outfit back to its Seventies simplicity – bring back the blue buccaneer boots! Reddy, meantime, benefits hugely from the careful colouring of Arif Prianto, always looking like a being of bits and bytes.
Bernardo Brice is a new name to me, but his lettering work is as good as any I’ve seen lately, with character-led variety that doesn’t go over the top.
And we get a cliffhanger centred on one of the leads that reminds me of a story from the depths of the Silver Age. I was already coming back next time, now I’m seriously excited.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
I read it too and have to respectfully disagree on most points. Henry’s artwork is way too slick and stiff for me. It just feels sterile. Ahmed also remains one of my least favorite writers and his continuing Waid’s misuse of Reddy is not helping. I feel like we’re getting a shoddy version of Marvel’s Absolute Vision storyline with Reddy miscast as the lead. The begging in this issue was the first time a glimmer of the true character has shown since Absolute Muck, I mean Power but it felt like manipulation rather than the true Reddy. Ahmed also used PG’s stupid name when I thought I remembered she was properly addressed as Karen last issue. And she’s never been Kara! I’m done with this unless your next review inspires me to try one more issue.
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Fair dos, Steve, you know I agree on the mis-portrayal of Reddy, but given that’s the set-up for the story, I have to go with it. And I really have enjoyed what’s been built from on the dodgy foundations, and hope some surprises to come will make sense of the way Reddy is at the moment.
I didn’t spot Peege being called THAT and am not going to check where that came, it’ll just annoy me!
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I’m pretty sure the only time they name-checked Power Girl’s secret identity was on the page where they introduce the characters. It’s a text box and easy to dismiss. Beyond that, I think they kept to code-name or nicknames for Peege
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I haven’t started reading this yet, but I’ll chime in as a fan of Henry’s art. I think he’s one of the finest artists DC has creating books for them right now, and I always consider him a plus when reading their stories.
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Glad it’s not just me! I’m always delighted to see his work, DC should promote him more.
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I thought this was enjoyable enough. I’m also a huge fan of Clayton Henry’s art. His characters are so sleek and easy on the eyes. yum yum
The only part of the story that threw me out a little (and I had the same issue with this week’s Titans) was tyring to figure out when they made Cyborg into a scientific brain. I’ve been rereading the New Teen Titans recently and Vic was always a high school jock who happened to have robot parts. And yes… over time he became knowledgable about how those parts worked and stuff, but the current DCU version of the character seems like *such* a jump from what he was. And… I get that this is the way he’s been portrayed for years and years but, for whatever reason, seeing Vic act like a cross between Iron Man and one of the Metal Men just seemed super weird to me.
On the whole, though, I am enjoying the characters interacting. I love books where characters who have no reason to every interact are suddenly found in the same story. Usually makes for some wonky dynamics.
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You’re right, Murray, I’ve wondered the same thing. It’s typical superhero mission creep, in the same way no scientist can be good at just one thing, they have to be great at everything. I see in one comic this week Mr Terrific is consulted when Dr Mid-Nite would be far better.
Maybe little Cyborgian nanobots have rewritten his brain a tad.
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I’ve been thinking it over, and your reviews are so good for this, and the story seems to be hitting a lot of buttons I like — that I might go ahead and pick this up on paper the next time I’m in my LCS. I’m set to be losing two ongoings in the next few months (Green Arrow and Birds of Prey, both excellent), and my DC pull list is suddenly lacking almost anything not written by Mark Waid. This book, with this group of characters, might fill that gap nicely.
At the very least. I’ll be able to enjoy that gorgeous Henry art.
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Well that’s my day made, thank you Rob.
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