Seven Soldiers of Victory: Volume One
In one ambitious project – seven characters, each getting a four-issue miniseries, all bookended by two stand-alones – comic scribe Grant Morrison (THE INVISIBLES) set out to redefine the concept of superhero teams last year. Now the epic comes to the easier-to-collect trade format in SEVEN SOLDIERS OF JUSTICE: VOLUME ONE. It’s the first of four volumes collecting the entire run, with this one comprised of SEVEN SOLDIERS OF JUSTICE #0, the first issue of KLARION THE WITCH BOY and the first two issues of SHINING KNIGHT, THE GUARDIAN and ZATANNA.
Fifty years ago, DC’s original Seven Soldiers team included second-string heroes like the Crimson Avenger, the Vigilante Kid and Green Arrow. In his revamp, Morrison goes for an even more obscure lineup, and adds a post-modern twist by having the characters never meet, even though they’re all working toward the same greater good. Exactly what that is, however, remains to be seen.
The #0 kicks this book off, wildly introducing seven heroes in a near-hallucinatory manner, only to have them all killed off by a giant spider at the end. The subsequent issues that follow hint at this otherworldly arachnid being a common enemy. Shining Knight is a member of King Arthur’s army who, along with his flying horse, is time-warped into modern-day Los Angeles, while the Guardian is an unemployed African American turned reporter/superhero for a daily paper. Zatanna, formerly of the Justice League, is a self-proclaimed “spellaholic” and has daddy issues, and Klarion … well, I’m not quite sure what to make of him.
It’s quite clear Morrison has Big Things planned for the series as a whole, but you’re not going to get it reading a quarter of it. So if the idea of SEVEN SOLDIERS intrigues you, prepare to commit to the whole thing. VOLUME ONE gives you just a few pieces of the overall puzzle, but already you can see the separate stories being held together by a few tiny, loose threads. The art – each story has its own artist – is top-notch, and the disparate styles somehow all seem to flow nicely rather than jar. It’s largely a fantasy, but there are elements of horror, sci-fi and straightforward action. I, for one, am pleased. –Rod Lott
This is one of the very few series I was picking up as individual issues and I was completely loving it. But then I went out of town and got behind about midway through the series. But I will definitely pick these up in trade paperback even though I’ve read quite a few of them. I’m a huge fan of Grant Morrison and he has so many great ideas and concepts in this series. To make things even better, he somehow channels his craziness and mad energy into a format that will make sense to every day comics readers - as opposed to something like THE FILTH. I highly recommend 7 SOLDIERS.
I was in a comic store this past weekend and saw the first two collections prouldly featured. Flipped through then all the awful memories of reading that first issue of The Filth flodded back.
They did not have the moon knight collection those bastards, but they did have Godzilla
[...] Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY: VOLUME TWO is a tricky beast, telling the middle of four of the seven heroes’ individual stories. (For those who came in late: Read our review of the first volume here so we don’t have to rehash.) [...]