Torrent #4 // Review
Michelle is fighting with an old friend and colleague. (They used to be on the same team.) He doesn’t want to hurt her. She knows that she’s going to have to hurt him. They’re pretty far up, so it’s kind of dangerous. (He is the most powerful mortal on the face of the planet. They call him “Captain Criterion.” He wears a cape and everything.) If Michelle can outmaneuver Criterion, she still has to deal with the rest of her former teammates in Torrent #4. Writer Marc Guggenheim continues a story illustrated by Justin Greenwood. Color amplifies the visuals courtesy of Rico Renzi.
Michelle knows that the rest of the team is going to come after her. She wouldn’t have engaged in combat with Criterion if she didn’t have a plan to deal with the rest of them. Plans don’t always work, though. She’s got quite a variety of different heroes to have to outwit to clear a path to the vengeance that she seeks. She can’t get through a battle with the world’s mightiest heroes without some scars and injuries. If she can survive her former friends, will she still have enough energy to achieve the vengeance she’s looking for?
Guggenheim has a good approach to Michelle’s big showdown with the rest of the team. A hero alone against the rest of her allies. It’s been done before in longer-running superhero series. Guggenheim has found a way to distill the drama and the tension of that conflict without all of the narrative clutter that one usually expects from a longer superhero series. The heroes on the team all have distinct personalities as well, which is quite impressive given the fact that they all have to share a very dense issue. It’s a nice balance.
Greenwood once again finds the right space between the fantasy action of a traditional superhero comic book and the dark conflict of a serious ensemble drama. There’s a determined sense of the inevitable that seems to hang over Michelle with nearly everything that she does. Without much discussion of her motivation for vengeance in the script this issue, Greenwood has a lot of work to do to make the reader identify with her. It’s a big challenge to put a hero animated by quiet determination at the center of a comic book...particularly as she’s up against a team of people who are ostensibly heroic.
Michelle continues to march her way to her destiny. Guggenheim has given himself a real challenge in giving the climactic completion of the first arc next month. Michelle is seriously compromised going into the big climax. It will be difficult to frame the showdown at the end of the opening arc with the kind of intensity that he’s managed to find in Michelle’s battle with the rest of her former teammates. Guggenheim’s done a good job with the series thus far, which suggests a sharp understanding of pacing and intensity for Michelle. There’s every reason to think that Guggenheim is going to maintain the right form through the end of the first arc of the series.
