In this week’s abbreviated Wednesday Comics Review, the team reviews the new remastered version of Capes #1 and Ibrahim Mustafa and Matt Kindt’s new comic book expansion of John le Carré’s world. Also a progress report!
Cape #1
Writer/Letterer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Mark Englert
Publisher: Image Comics – Skybound
Review by Khalid Johnson
Screenwriter Robert Kirkman and artist and series co-creator Mark Englert have revisited and remastered the 20-year-old series “Capes” following the introduction of the series’ characters in Invincible Season 3. Watching the original release reveals a new level of sophistication from Englert that should be celebrated as an artist. Being able to go back and incorporate what I’ve learned, my confidence in my anatomy and my environment, it all reflects and I think that’s a beautiful thing.
On a story level, they build Capes and their world while playing in the world of Invincible. The Capes are failing in the corporate superhero business, and the heroes do superhero work like it’s a 9-to-5, clocking in, clocking out, a day shift, a night shift. Personally, I don’t like corporate superheroes, and the final page is a perfect example of why that is neatly summarized in a few panels.
Some moments here felt like they rhymed with the less edgy parts of The Boys, but there’s a lot less meanness in the exploration and a lot less contempt for superheroes as a concept. We end up working with a variety of superheroes like Bolt, Commander Capitalism, and Kid Thor, but their blend of superheroism and the trappings of corporate life allows us to keep things light until a new crisis emerges.
My personal feelings towards corporate superheroes aside, the book feels relatable and takes time to build character dynamics through dialogue and metatext, allowing the characters to breathe into a vibrant world.
By John le Carre: Circus — Losing Control #1
Screenplay: Matt Kindt
Art: Ibrahim Mustafa
Color: Brad Simpson
Text: Simon Bowland
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Review by Clyde Hall
If you’re even remotely familiar with John le Carré’s work (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Night Manager), it’s easy to understand Ian Fleming’s James Bond adventures. Spy stories like this, with one foot in the operatic mythology of global threats and the other in the real spy business, were one way to survive the aftermath of Fleming’s World War II-era British naval intelligence. Because real espionage is dirty work. Something that can lobotomize the human decency of people conducting espionage activities.
John le Carré, a Cold War veteran of MI5 and MI6, implicitly understood this. It became the basis for his George Smiley spy novels. And it remained the basis of le Carré’s novels as he wrote about the changing landscape of espionage that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was a master at making the hopes, failures, humor, violence, and revenge of a spy relatable to his readers.
Put le Carré’s name in a title that chronicles the further story of his circus as the center of British intelligence, and you get a lot of reputation to live up to. Get it wrong and you might end up logging into a movie based on facts about real assets that real people, including Ian Fleming, knew about. They make fun action movies like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly War, but they don’t delve into the fate of secret agents during the actual war that follows the events of the movie.
But when you get the elements and story of a tradecraft like le Carré’s right, it looks like John le Carré’s Circus — Losing Control. In this book, Ibrahim Mustafa’s panels and artwork appear at first glance to be serene, like the daily pace of a typical morning for an office worker. That is, until Mustafa pulls back the curtain just a little to show us what Maggie’s inner dialogue is like. This is a great visual representation of the spy’s idea that if you don’t make a process look mundane and normal, you’re using your assets incorrectly.
Matt Kindt, on the other hand, scripts the opening chessboard setting of the circus as the characters, the center and periphery of the stage, and the operating entity. It seems pretty solid, right? It’s not his style, with violent confrontations and flashbacks of the illegal activities that turn the characters into agents when the story begins.
The Circus watches over and protects Britain’s best-kept secrets. The decision-maker is a master spy code-named Control. He has the final say on which agents are given missions, which assets are irreplaceable, and which pieces are sacrificed. He is vital to the success of the overall operation, taking an incalculable number of Eyes Only Pies and proving it against a number of domestic and international rivals. If the controls are gone, the circus may collapse. Enemies of the state will be bold to take advantage of it. Confidence isn’t just high; it keeps you on track.
So if a control goes missing, it will naturally be kept secret. Also from the rest of the circus. The secret is kept by the only agent who can match Control’s understanding of the spy organization: his mother. The mother is the assistant, the agent responsible for providing instructions, schedules, and updates to the men and women in charge. Maggie Salinger is the mother in question, and it’s up to her to find out what happened to Control and implement a plan based on what she discovers. However, the mother is not a field soldier. Plus, I can’t let my coworker’s shark tank smell blood in the water while I try to get details about what happened to Control. And the reason. And whose fault is it?
le Carré’s harsh wit and the weary atmosphere of the tragedy that would befall Maggie and the subjects of her investigation remain. Kindt’s story impressively captures both the flair and flavor of le Carré’s style. It’s fascinating to watch Maggie navigate the treacherous waters of the circus and protect her boss using field methods learned primarily from reading operational reports and after-action reports. Control mentored her, and the job honed her natural ability to spot manipulation and misdirection. And now she faces a challenge that only a seasoned spy could handle.
For readers familiar with le Carré’s Carla trilogy, the concept of a circus setting and how it works may be unnecessary, but seeing how a circus works through the challenges of 21st century espionage keeps it fresh.
I read a report earlier this year about changing security protocols to thwart AI in government and private industry. For years, intelligence agencies have struggled to stay ahead of AI developments. They knew that when AI reached the ability to complete mathematical formulas that take humans a lifetime to solve in seconds, codes and codes would no longer be usable. These institutions recently agreed that it is no longer possible to stay ahead of AI.
They reverted to analog procedures that predated the lifespan of modern operatives. Protocols rely on people, not programming. People can’t be hacked, so instead of facial recognition software, we use agents with good facial recognition skills. Analog protocols of the past that completely bypass dependence and connectivity on computer networks. As Maggie begins to unravel the mysteries of control, we see this approach guide her actions. For the reader to understand, there is another level of realism regarding modern Intel.
This highlights my only caveat regarding this title and its premiere. If you’re looking for a breezy action story with cool spies and bonkers tool-wielding, pulse-pounding espionage action sequences, and thoroughly entertaining fare in the vein of the aforementioned Ungentlemanly War Department or the Mission: Impossible series, this might not be your type. On the other hand, if you want to know the manipulative, multi-level methodology of real intelligence operations, this comic is a great starting point. And I think le Carré lovers will find a lot to like here too.
The rest of the creative team also got the (likely redacted) memo in respecting the real-life intelligence game that reflected Kindt’s script and Mustafa’s art.
Brad Simpson keeps his color palette neutral. The characters move through a world that is almost as greyscale as their morals. This confirms what many people who have lived their careers say about their calling. It’s heartless. It’s brutal. We need it to save lives and protect national security. Some operatives are more honorable than others, but the circus has many dangerous animals roaming the ring, looking for a way to infiltrate, escape, or rise above the power structure itself. It doesn’t matter who has to be thrown under the bus to achieve any of these outcomes. The Simpsons’ color scheme seems to unconsciously acknowledge their shared mission.
I’ve shown a level of disdain for the action-adventure spy genre here. But please understand, I like most of such novels and movies. I have also read le Carré and seen many adaptations based on his works. If you want to know how information gathering actually happens, this is where I go. I mean, it’s gruesome, gritty stuff, and you might need to take a bath to get clean again after reading it. Or at least multiple hand washes. That’s why I sometimes choose realistic spy novels rather than typical reading list material. But when it works, I couldn’t be more grateful. And the premiere of John le Carré’s Circus – Losing Control went well.
progress report
2000AD 2459 (Rebellion Publishing): It would be reviewer misconduct not to mention this week the ending of the Dredd marine horror comic, Judge Dredd: And Return to the Sea, by writer Rob Williams, artist Henry Flint, and letterer Annie Parkhouse. This story accomplished a lot over its ten-week run. The film begins as an interesting horror-tinged mystery, and then reveals itself to also be a kind of fable about survival, body horror, and traveling across the ocean to conquer the land that awaits. There’s even a theme about science being weaponized against humanity. Additionally (and perhaps most importantly) Henry Flint had to draw, among other things, a large number of excellent and troublesome bug-like monster men. On the surface, this was a suspenseful monster-horror story about stopping a rapidly spreading threat that attempts to jump from an isolated location to a more populated area. But beneath the surface, it’s also about the pernicious elements of society, and how humanity’s worst tendencies tend to migrate as well. I think everything is put together smoothly, making it a very readable work. But this story will probably be best remembered for the fact that Flint doesn’t dabble in the grandeur of the gruesome artwork, with the near-silent 20-panel grind of the penultimate chapter (published in 2000AD 2458) standing out to me as the best and most memorable page in the Dredd comics of the series, and perhaps all of the year. This week’s cover (above) is by Cliff Robinson, with colors by Dylan Teague. As always, you can get your digital copy of The Prog here. —Zach Quaintance
Column edited by Zach Quaintance.
Read past entries in the Weekly Wednesday Comics Review series or check out other reviews here!
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