Written by Steve Orlando
Art by Davide Tinto
Published by Image Comics
Buy it Digitally from comiXology
When I reviewed the first issue of Commanders in Crisis, I purposefully left out the main hook.
Not only do our heroes have these awesome powers. They’re also from other Earths. And, on their respective earths, they each had been President of the United States. Hence the book title’s play on words.
And not only that, but each of our diverse team was “the first” American president of their respective minority group: gay, Latinx, female, Pakistani-American, Black and female.
How did their worlds die?
Reality tore away at them as virtues in their societies died. And on this final earth, someone is at work trying to bring about the end again.
The dead man from the first issue?
Well, he was empathy itself, an idea made flesh and murdered.
OK, OK – I’m really not into this, in the execution. The concept may work on its own, but the subtext is all the way text in a way that makes all this … corny?
This is getting as odd as when Geoff Johns created elemental creatures to embody will, hope, fear and everything on the power ring spectrum in the Green Lantern books.
But, I’ll put that aside.
These heroes still have some pretty cool powers that are deeply attached to the virtuous ideas of seeing deeply into people with compassion and faith in their best qualities. Prizefighter’s super-strength and nigh invulnerability literally is powered by people believing in him.
That part of the series so far, especially when these heroes interact with everyday people, is rewarding.
Seer, helps a middle-aged lesbian couple by tugging on one of myriad invisible threads connecting us to the people we love. Sawbones, who uses a “bio-spectral vision” to save lives through surgery-as-bodyhacks, can see into people to deliver exactly what they need.
Who wouldn’t love that? Especially when you consider how clearly this book is written in response to our current years of the American presidency.
