Anghus Houvouras reviews Zero #2…
“Shanghai, 2019. An opulent skyscraper party full of terrorists looking for fresh funding. Edward Zero is about to sabotage it big time — and then the skyscraper starts to vanish, bit by bit. So maybe he should look into that first?”
The concept behind Ales Kot’s new Image series Zero is interesting on a number of levels. The core creative conceit feels remarkably refreshing. Tell the story of a secret agent and trained killing machine over the course of six issues using different artists to draw each chapter. On paper, it’s unique and potentially engaging. In reality, there’s so much that can go wrong. The idea of a rotating band of artists trying to tell a single cohesive story is filled with potential pratfalls.
Your first impression of any comic book is based on the art. No matter how important the writing is in a comic book, the first thing that registers are the images. You begin to associate them with the story unfolding in front of you. By the end of an issue, they become connected. Practically intertwined. To change that up six different times over the course of a story means that every time you pick up a new issue, you almost have to re-engage with the story again. And as I poured over the second issue of Zero, I found myself understanding the brilliance behind the idea.
In the first issue we met Agent Zero and watched as he carried out a brutal mission in the most savage of places. It was a great introduction to the character as we meet him already into his career as a cerebral and highly efficient killing machine. The second issue reacquaints us with the character in a new way, delving into his past at a boarding school that trains children to become espionage assets. Agent Zero’s past is hardly an ideal childhood.
Artist Tradd Moore has a storybook quality to his art that feels perfectly suited to this particular chapter. Combined with Kot’s script it makes for a fantastic read. The dialogue is poignant and at times tragically beautiful. There’s one panel in particular where young Agent Zero and his childhood friend Mina hang from a tree and they talk about the future like only children can: talking about subjects like marriage and death with little real understanding of them, and Mina says,
“Well I want to die holding your hand.”
Three’s so much of Zero that feels familiar, but it’s all rendered so beautifully. The characters feel real, the moments feel genuine. The espionage story and training children to be killers has been done, but i can’t remember it having such a wonderful sense of melancholy. That’s a tribute to both Kot’s words and Moore’s art. The first issue of Zero was stark and brutal. The second was poetic and tragic. So many books these days are barely worth a single read. I read issue two of Zero. Then I went back to the first issue and re-read it before diving back into #2. Zero is attempting to be more than a story, it’s shaping up to be an interesting and highly entertaining experiment in the medium.
I can’t wait to see what Kot does next.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon.
Originally published October 17, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
