Black Badges Volume 3 collects the final issues of the series into a hardcover edition. If you haven“t read the series or the first two volumes, I“m not sure what you are doing reading this. Unless, of course, you are the kind of person who reads the end of a book/series first. Don“t be that person.
If you have read the first two volumes, you know what type of book you are getting. You are getting a story of a group of kids who are trained to be a highly specialized covert operations team disguised as a boy scout troop. Need to break a political dissident out of a gulag? Need to assassinate a dictator? Is SEAL Team Six to ham-handed to pull the job off? Send in the Black Badges.
But as the Black Badges have learned in the first two volumes, the organization that runs them has itself been corrupted. The Honor Society doesn“t know if they can trust their own operatives and has stashed them away to either confirm their loyalty or compel it. But can the Honor Society contain them?
Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT, Dept. H, Folklords, Ether, X-O Manowar) is a great twisted storyteller and doesn“t disappoint. I like the way he intertwines the story of the previous generation of Black Badges with the current one, so you can see how the organization because fragmented and targeted for a takeover. The actual resolution of the story was a little weak and almost too straight forward for a tale that has spent so much time in the gray areas between black and white.
Tyler Jenkin“s (Peter Panzerfaust, Neverboy) art combined with the unusual color work of his wife, Hilary Jenkins (Beauty, At The End of Your Teather), really pays off in making this book visually distinct in the best way possible. While it would have been easy for them to just use the same style they developed for Grass Kings (also with Kindt), they didn“t do that here and it really pays off for art fans. There is a real painterly quality to their work on Black Badges that enhances both the suspense and the action in this story.
This collection delivers a tight story that for the most part pays off the work done in the previous two volumes. There are lots of twists before you get to the final pay off. This series could teach James Bond a thing or two about suspense. Despite all of the machinations, the creators never forget and more importantly never let you forget that the people in the center of their story are kids. Kids who are trying to establish a family in the most difficult situation possible.
If you are a fan of this creative team, you should check out their work on the equally inventive – but different in so many ways – Grass Kings.
SCORE: 4 out of 5 stars
Writer and Cover Artist: Matt Kindt
Artist: Tyler Jenkins
Colors: Hilary Jenkins
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Boom! Studios
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- Sent from the future by our Robot Ape overlords to preserve the timeline. Reading and writing about comics until the revolution comes. All hail the Orangutan Android Solar King!
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