Commanders in Crisis #3 // Review
Empathy was murdered. The living embodiment of it has been resurrected. He's not sure what to do with his time. A group of heroes struggles to work out what death means in the muddled superhuman poetry of Commanders In Crisis #3. Writer Steve Orlando's central premise gains a degree of focus in another issue brought to the page by Davide Tinto. Colorist Francesca Carotenuto gives life to action and drama that seems to be picking up some kind of rhythm. A group of heroes investigates...something. It might be a bit more compelling if the conflict had a bit more context, but the characters remain interesting as the series enters its third issue. as the series enters its third issue.
The 'John Doe' gets a name, Simon Wheelwright. He's understandably confused; he was dead. Now he's alive, he'll be dead again soon. The Crisis Command needs him to remember a bit about his murder. Frontier has a special connection to him, so she takes him out to an amusement park in an effort to try to connect with him. Meanwhile, other members of the team are out investigating before an emergency call comes in, forcing them to deal with a menace that can literally kill with phone calls.
Orlando is very, very close to getting the overall premise to work. A group of heroes with fantastic powers is investigating a murder. It seems like a perfectly well-grounded premise, but none of what is going on feels anywhere near as engaging as it needs to be to make any real sense. The closest Orlando's script comes to feeling appealing is the conversation between Frontier and the newly non-dead Simon Wheelwright. It's reasonably compelling drama to watch an off-duty hero casually hanging out with a civilian of great importance. The rest of the issue almost works, but there isn't enough in the framing of the story to draw in the reader.
There's a full-page rendering of a man drinking and digesting a mixture of B- blood and cola. It's one of the more appealing and interesting bits of art in the whole series thus far, but since it's not actually tied-in all that well to the rest of the issue, it's just a weird curiosity. Much of the rest of the installment feels visually rich. Tinto manages some dramatic nuance between Frontier and Simon. Carotenuto's work in light and shadow is breathtaking...particularly indoors. The atmospheric color of the issue gives Commanders In Crisis a very distinct visual signature.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Orlando's approach to introducing a whole new series is that he's been missing that dramatic hook that could really distinguish a whole new world of superheroes that's an amalgamation of different legends from different superhero worlds that don't exist. It's a good idea that Orlando hasn't been able to conjure to the page in a way that feels terribly engaging. All the characters here seem far too involved in what's going on in their own lives to make it feel terribly interesting to the reader.
