Say what you will about the Occupy movement and its seeming lack of focus, but one of the more frustrating things about it involved the brutality of cops involved in cracking down on it. In fact, for as much as we respect the honest cops who put their lives on the line, the steady stream of stories about corrupt blue boys assaulting people just for recording or photographing their use of excessive force or anything of the sort sullies their good names. That seems to be the ground that Gail Simone is covering in The Movement #1, her brand new series with Freddie Williams II – a book we’re hoping can recapture some of the much-missed bent group dynamics of her Secret Six.
In the fictional town of Coral City, we see two of those nasty cops roughing up a pair of teenagers, confiscating their weed and trying to force sexual favors out of the girl in exchange for their freedom. However, their dirty deeds go public when a swarm of people wearing creepy-cool metallic masks with built-in webcams, calling themselves Channel M, broadcasts them online (a thinly-veiled allegory to hacker group Anonymous). The next day, their captain tries to fire the two jerks, Officers Whitt and Pena, only to find out the union won’t let it happen. Before that can be pressed further, there’s a report of a new victim of The Cornea Killer, who tears out people’s eyes, in the seedy area of town known as The ‘Tweens.
Cut to the Angel’s Hand Presbyterian Church, and a young man who says his parents always called him Burden looks sheepish about entering – a concern proven right when he suddenly pulls a Linda Blair, as if possessed by a demon. The cops at the crime scene – including the captain and the two corrupt jagoffs – respond to the disturbance, only to find their efforts stopped by Channel M’s superteam – which includes an earth-mover named Tremor (with an initial vibe not unlike X-Factor’s Monet), an angry, mechanically-winged fighter named Katharsis (a cross between Huntress and Hawkgirl, it seems), and ’emotion-rider’ named Virtue, and Mouse, The Prince of Rats. Tremor swallows up the squad cars, Katharsis beats the shit out of Officer Whitt, Mouse defuses the Burden situation and Virtue not only informs the captain that his right hand man is having an affair with his wife, but also that The ‘Tweens are off limits to his police force – and even the denizens of Angel’s Hand are among the Channel M faithful.
It’s a really strong start, as Simone evokes real-world issues as well as standard superhero turf-claims – but pitting them against the cops provides a different sort of feel to the proceedings. She also gives her main cast some interesting powers – including the intimation that Burden is just a kid with a mental illness who has just been told all his life that he’s possessed, and just had the powerset to make that believable. Williams’ art has a very old-school feel to it, but it serves this story very well. The character designs are practical and yet pretty cool, and I really like the classic Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel elements to Virtue’s look, driven home by her astral/energy/empath self evoking Monica’s energy forms).
The Movement #1 is instantly fascinating, and with a trusted voice like Simone at the helm, there’s little chance it will squander its potential. I look forward to seeing just how broken these characters are when we really get into their heads. It’s hard to drop a new book with a cast of all new characters and get us interested in investing in them from the get-go, but Simone’s got the moxie to pull it off. To some, I imagine it may come off as heavy-handed, but what is any superhero book if not a heavy hand smacking down the jerks du jour? It’s not going to remain as simple as it may seem on the surface – of that, I’m quite sure.
