DC Comics‘s Secret Six is one of those titles that has the guidelines for the team right in the name. There’s got to be six of them. And they need some sort of secret, or secrets. Happily, writer Nicole Maines and artist Stephen Segovia nail that assignment right in Secret Six #1 — and add plenty of fraught drama into the mix, as well.
It definitely helps that Maines is, essentially, continuing the story she’s been telling about Dreamer (the character she played on TV in Supergirl, and has since become a champion for in DC Comics proper) for the past few years. And if there is a hiccup in the first issue, it’s that there’s a lot of complicated and convoluted exposition to get through. Dreamer was good, she was corrupted by Amanda Waller in the lead-up to the Absolute Power event, she died a hero, and then came back to life in Jon Kent’s dreams. You know: comic book stuff.
But thankfully, Maines lets all this plot dump come out through the complex character relationships between Dreamer, Jon Kent, and Jon’s boyfriend Jay Nakamura, aka Gossamer. Without getting too in the weeds in this review myself, Jon was also corrupted during Absolute Power, Jay partially blames Dreamer for it, and it all leads to some extremely fascinating fights, with Jon stuck in the middle of a hero looking for redemption and a boyfriend out for blood.
The plot helps amplify those tensions: Amanda Waller might be missing from her prison cell, and for some reason the prison guards don’t know she’s gone. Having the source of all these character’s trauma is smart, and given we add three more cast members by the end of the issue, it’ll be interesting to see how they augment this dynamic.
The action is fun, the mystery is interesting, and true to the classic Gail Simone take on Secret Six there’s plenty of humor in the mix, as well. Segovia is the perfect artist for this, too, with dynamic designs that emphasize the action and the quieter moments with equal aplomb.
Overall, this is a great next step for this corner of the DCU, and given a cliffhanger ending may have left one of the team-members dying on the floor, the next issue is a must-read as well. The secret is out, folks: this book is great.
Secret Six #1 Rating:
Secret Six #1 Official Synopsis:
In the wake of Absolute Power, the Justice League has returned, the war criminal Amanda Waller is in prison, and things are finally getting back to normal — until Dreamer, Jon Kent, and Jay Nakamura discover that Waller has somehow vanished into thin air from her cell. With no leads and nothing but questions, the three are forced into an uneasy alliance with some of DC’s most ruthless super-villains — Catman, Deadshot, and Black Alice — to find Waller and reclaim the infinite trove of secrets locked in her head. At the same time, they will need to uncover their roles in a larger chess game, without letting their own individual secrets tear them apart from the inside.
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