Freedom Fighters #1 Review

The Day America Died

Written By: Robert Venditti

Art By: Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Adriano Lucas, Deron Bennett

Cover Price: $3.99 

Release Date: December 19, 2018

It's time to kick some Ratzi ass and who better than the Freedom Fighters to get the job done?  Yeah, we've got a new Maxi-series being thrown at us with this one and while I would much rather have some JSA action, Earth X will have to do for now as Robert Venditti gives us the info on what happened to the original Freedom Fighters and who will take up their mantel to make sure that America never dies.  Let's jump into this issue and see what's what.  Let's check it out.

One of the first things you'll notice in this issue is the excessive use of the word "Ratzi" and while you can obviously figure out that this is just a term for Nazis, this is actually a callback to the how DC Comics referred to the Nazis during the Second World War and seeing it used here is a nice little easter egg for anyone who may have read comics from that time like All-Star Comics.  References aside though, we're thrown head first into this story as we see the day that the Freedom Fighters were shut down by the Ratzi menace by their SS Plastic Men and the idea that for all intents and purposes......... The Ratzi's won.  

This is kind of an interesting concept because I figured I'd jump into this book and start seeing the Freedom Fighters just on another adventure or possibly picking up where we left off in The Multiversity: Mastermen, but even though we're dealing with Earth X characters and themes, this seems to be an animal all its own that wants to tell its own story without the constraint of Overman or any of the craziness of The Multiversity.  That being said though, that doesn't mean these things can't show up later on, but from what we get in this issue, it looks like we're simply dealing with the Freedom Fighters and that's it......... and really, that's enough because we get some serious shit right away out of this book that really just sets up the despair that America has felt for the seventy years and we don't get a righteous victory against the Ratzis out of our heroes either, we get the day they failed........... and it's pretty damn intense.

All in all, we have a pretty solid first issue.  My biggest problem with this though is that the issue didn't do enough to really establish who the characters in the Freedom Fighters are.  Yeah, it gives you their names, which you could then go and research, but I know that most people don't do that and because of that, I don't think that a lot of readers who are unfamiliar with these heroes will understand a lot about them by the end of this book.  The art is terrific though and really makes this book feel special and from everything we got here I can't wait to see what the rest of the series holds for us going forward.

Bits and Pieces:

While the characters weren't established for new readers as much as I would have liked, I did have a blast reading this issue, which seems weird for how dark the book's subject matter is.  The art is fantastic though and we have ourselves a team that I can't wait to see more of........ I just hope that this maxi-series can maintain the momentum that this issue created.

8.3/10