Brit #9

This was one of those Free Comic Book Day extras. Not an official FCBD edition, just a bargain bin comic that a dealer was giving away for free as part of the Free Comic Book Day fun.

Title: Brit
Issue: 9
Date: 2008
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Bruce Brown
Penciler: Nate Bellegarde
Inker: Nate Bellegarde
Colorist: FCO Plascencia
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Ryan Ottley, Kelsey Shannon
Editor: Aubrey Sitterson

I had no familiarity with this title at all going into this, so to start a fairly complex book with a large cast at issue #9 can sometimes be a bit of a stretch.

But I have to say, the first scene was a really solid hook for me. The book opens with a guy named Bob sitting on the Great Wall of China with his date for the evening, teleporter Ms. Popper. Popper is instantly likeable, an older female character who is quietly competent.

The story, as it turns out, plays heavily with parallel universes, and relies a bit heavily on parallel universe cliches once we get going, but there was good flow in the action, screen time for a lot of characters, emotional intensity, and a very clear degree of thought put into characters' various powers and abilities.

There is also a seemingly invincible villain who has that whole invincible-and-also-intolerably-annoying vibe, and it did not help matters when his identity is revealed on the last page to be the most obvious cliche of them all.

But in spite of all that, there was enough here in terms of good dialogue and clever interactions to keep my interest up.

Rating: 6.5/10