A sense of slight Vertigo
For starters, I'd like to point out that I dont have a huge spot in my heart for Vertigo and most of the characters that make their home there. But thats not a barrier for me to be interested in stuff that involves them and let me say that out of all the covers i have seen from Flashpoint, the Secret Seven is the most eye catching for me. Things got even better when I grasped the concept of the team; magic wing of the superheroes that want to stop the insanity in Europe...whats left of it that is, so its a bit like Shadowpact and Sentinels of Magic for me. Now on with the review.
Story:
Ok, basically this is a jump-in issue for everyone as the story appears to be written as if a monthly team-title, the team is already gathered, it has a history we are only given a few hints about.
This part of the story focusses on the issues both Shade, the Changing Man and June Moon aka. the Enchantress. One haunted by past faliures, a need for independance and troubles with semi-sentient clothing the other by a split personality thats gotten lost on the inside.
Characters:
Initially, after the first read, I thought it was a bit wierd to not introduce these people to us, but at the second read I got that all we really need to know about them are handled nicely by, mostly, other people, who tell us what we need to know about them.
As you might have gathered from my initial statement, I dont know alot about Shade and his story, but I am a bit unsure if I like this guy or not. He seems 'funky' and somewhat...well, dumb, in a way, same way Austin Powers does for me. In this issue he has his 'RAWR!-moment' in one panel and in the other he appears to get pushed along quite easilly. But then again, before reading this issue, I did suspect Shade was a few degrees short of sane so that maybe why (well none of the people on the covers look sane, honestly).
Enchantress however i do know a few things about and for one it's nice to see her back in the witch-outfit and not the battle-dress and headgear she adopted in Shadowpact. However it should be clear for those who's read the previews that Enchantress is not well and lets just say the book confirms it. If anything she could have been picked out of time from pre-Day of Judgement and her mental state from then given a slight twist.
Art:
This is easy for me, since i do have a soft spot for Perez' pencils and reading the pages somewhere gives me a nostalgic feeling of being back in the days of New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths and Wonder Woman. Meta, as it appears here, seems to come from that time of 'locations-that-appear-to-be-giant-machines-or-computers', you know like every wall in Titans Tower could house a computer screen, laser cannon or a coffee machine. Characters are actually elaborately drawn with hosts of details on them when needed.
Oh, and theres those covers.
Is it worth your time and money?:
Its tempting to say one should always encourage the mainstream audience to seek out the lesser known characters, atleast once, as there is nothing wrong with liking both Superman and, say, Sandman. But I will be honest; that is book is for people who wont mind spending a little time looking up wikia's and older comics to get atleast a basic grasp of this book and the characters in it. If you expect superhero action from the get go and easy to get characters, then you will be dissapointed. If you want mystery and slowbuilding story, then theres certainly something for you here, because atm we cant tell who's mad or not.
Rating: 4.5/5
I was expecting a wierd book with magic and familiar characters that acted oddly, and thats what I got here. But I did however feel a little dissapointed that screen time was not equally handed out, but that was to be expected with Milligan writing. It will be interesting to see what happens when Perez' creation has to share the spotlight.
