What do you think of The Movement?

I think Gail Simone works much much better when it comes to handling team books instead of Solo books.

But after reading TM #1 im not sure what to think. It is not offensively bad as batgirl is and it is not hilariously bad as Firestorm, But it is also not a great as Secret Six or Birds of Prey, and depending of angle that you see this book it might be very good or very bad.

First it comes the previously undecipherable premise of the book. After reading interviews and seeing art and hearing the creators talking about I still had NO IDEA, what the hell was this book about, I really didnt get it until I read the book and I dont know if this was a case of very bad PR because it is actually very simple.

This book is Anonymous with superheroes.

hell that is actually a good catchphrase.

Which lead me to book itself.

!!SPOILERS!!

so the book starts when 2 cops bust 2 kids for drug possession, one of the cops wants to let them go with a warning, the other one wants to let them go 2 but in exchange of sexual favors. all of this is captured by camera by many people wearing the same creepy masks.

we then cut to the police station where the Captain of police has just find out of the entire mess and wants to either suspend or fire the rapist cop, he cant because...

...

I dont understand this.

This guy appears on a video trying to coerce sex, and he cannot be submitted even for an investigation... why?

I also want to point out that the captain actually appears as a cool guy here.

then we get to scenes of the preview.

the police investigate a crime scene then "Burden"(...really!) attacks a church and the "Heroes" appear and start fighting against the police.

we are presented to each one of them and their powers

one of them, Katarsis, encounters the rapist cop, beats him up and then kills him by snapping his neck.

and the leader Virtue uses her powers on The Police Captain to reveal to him that his own wife is having an affair. then he tells him that "Burden" is not evil but he is just confused because he was mistreated and he has powers.

the Captain is then threaten by Virtue and and enters the church.

and Thats the issue

and I have no idea what to think of this.

For me the biggest problem in this issue is The Police Captain. Is he suppose to be the bad guy? and if he is, Why?

Is not like he is a corrupt cop, or like he defends the rapist cop, at the contrary he tries to do something about it but he cant, for some reason.

then he investigates a crime scene and gets an alert that the perpetrator is in the church and he tries to do something about that, then he is attacked by the Movement.

when he talks to Virtue, she says something like "is not like you even think about us anyways", what is that suppose to mean? he is there to investigate a murder on that same neighborhood and to protect the church and its people as it is his job.

It is not until the very end of the book where he actually says something even remotely antagonizing which is that he plans to wipe out this place so that decent people live in again.

where is this coming from? and is not like Virtue represent the entire neighborhood and even if said this in anger, that anger is justified by the fact that he was just attacked by rats, was threaten by a girl and his own wife is cheating on him!

So, at the end of the day. Are the Movement the good guys?

because they are just protecting a murderer with superpowers who might need professional help which I dont think they will provide, kill a cop in cold blood, threaten a police and then instigate anarchy in a neighborhood because...

... why?

I understand that this an anti-establishment group but there has to be a point to be anti-establishment in the first place.

The reason why this exact same theme worked so well on V for Vendetta or Blood Syndicate is because it actually established the government and police as a very corrupt force.

Blood Syndicate was a gang that were outcasts of the society in the first place and start living in a place out of the control of any establishment and just care about themselves because the government is either against them or do not care about them or want to take advantage of them.

So in the case of The Movement, are they suppose to be good, or are they suppose to be bad?

I really cant tell if this a group of antiheroes who are trying to do good because they do not seem to show doing some good, or maybe they are just a group of anarchists who are trying to spread chaos in the city, just because, on that side it would be similar to Secret Six.

Secret Six was a group of murderers and criminals and you were NOT suppose to sympathize with them on anyway, yet the book was good and enjoyable because of the interactions between the characters was amazing and because of the villains they were fighting against. You wanted to cheer for S6 because the opponents were unlikable and horrible people who deserved to die.

So if you see them as a group of heroes, If you are meant to cheer for them, I dont think this book is good, if this characters are meant to be unlikable, if they are meant to be criminals and follows a similar formula to Secret Six, then i think this has the potential to be very good.

But I really cant decide which one it is.

What do you think?

I prefer Movement focus on the super heroes like Katharsis, Tremor, etc. and forget about the boring poor multitude with no powers. I hope dc will also reboot the Blood Syndicate.

I agree with you on the movement I just got confused but maybe that is what the book is supposed to be.I don't know if to I am going to pick up the second issue

yeah, I just found that picture by Ross Campbell, he would be perfect on that book

<3 Blood Syndicate love. :)

Wise Son is greatly missed.

I read it and I can't believe people actually liked it. I found it to be a poorly written mess.

@arnoldoaad:

Did you notice Darseid's Justifier helmets?

I think my final score would be that it was average with a lot of holes on it, it all depends of the angle you look at it.

If this is a team of heroes fighting corruption I think this was a terrible first issue. but if we are meant to not cheer for them in the first place then I think this did a good job.

and I dont know if this was meant to be the Justifier helmets based on the Final Crisis helmets since FC happen or if it is just a similar design

My opinion of Gail is that it's not a matter of team vs. solo books, she just works better on comics that don't take themselves too seriously. The whole New 52 has an atmosphere of "unfun" to it that seems to be dragging writers like her out of their element and into awkward plotlines (Flash is one of the few exceptions, once in a while). I'm as big a fan of the Six as anyone, but even that had some flaws in execution and technicality (eg: irrational jobbing of some characters out of the Six's league, like Count Vertigo and Weather Wizard). However, it was a fun book and that's what kept me hooked and also allowed the series to explore some more serious issues/plotlines from time to time.

I feel you, man. I understand beating up on the corrupt cop, but the others just seem like they're trying to do their job. It really comes off as being anti-establishment just because that's the "in thing" to be these days. The Captain comes off as the hero of the story, to me.

I knew I wasn't going to like this as soon as it was announced. "Meet the 99%. They were the super-powered disenfranchised-- now they're the voice of the people!" They really just come off as a bunch of poor, entitled, super-powered dicks. It also doesn't help that I really hate all of this Occupy and Anonymous bulls###.

I gave it a shot, didn't like it.

Also I remember Gail saying that this wouldnt really have much to do with the Occupy movement and thats not true, this is pretty much that,

I tried giving this book a chance yesterday... and yeah, I was pretty underwhelmed as well. Add me to the "The Captain Was The Real Hero" Club, because that's exactly how I felt after reading this issue.

Hopefully, we can see the government's own super hero groups battle the movement.

I just saw the solicits of chp4

They are still fighting the police!

wouldnt that defeat the premise of the story?

@arnoldoaad: Seriously? Bleh, I already gave this book a chance, I'm not giving it another one. The Green Team looks pretty cool, though.

@smashbrawler: yeah, they have Deathstroke on that and it looks actually fun

@arnoldoaad: The girl with the bionic arm being harassed by the press, rich people buying Deathstroke's services... it's that perfect mix between fantasy and reality that I love seeing in comic books, especially because it's so rare.

@smashbrawler: I hope it doesnt get cancelled after 8 issues like The Movement most certainly will be.