C.O.W.L. 1964 #1 // Review
It’s late July of 1964. LBJ is gearing-up for the presidential elections, which will ultimately pit him against Barry Goldwater. The big news, though, is in Chicago. The Chicago Organized Workers League--the first ever superhero labor union--is looking to go national. Things are going to get complicated in C.O.W.L. 1964 #1. Writers Kyle Higgins. Alec Siegel and artist Rod Reis take a look back at an earlier era in a retro action drama that feels comfortably dense without totally overwhelming the reader with background details. The politics of the drama feel well-thought out and the action shoots across the page with admirable impact.
Elsewhere, Skylancer has appeared on a rooftop in the Loop in Chicago demanding jewels, cash and watched of the rich people having dinner there. The jetpacked criminal really shouldn’t have any difficulty getting a bunch of rich people to hand over minor valuables...until the heroes show-up. Things are going to get rough with the heroes in pursuit, but that doesn’t mean that Skylancer isn’t going to make it difficult for them. It’s a dangerous situation for everyone involves as a high-flying tangle between heroes and villain could accumulate some rather tragic collateral damage.
Higgins and Siegel lower in a hell of a lot of background information. the narrative of the story is firmly rooted in history. Current events from 1964 regarding contemporary politics are fed into the narrative through radio and print. A good portion of the front page of The Chicago Ledger from July 23rd of 1964 provides a stern AP-style background for the drama and the action the feels quite fresh even if the font used on the page doesn’t quite feel contemporary to newspapers of the era. It’s just...kind of cool to read what a character’s reading in-world right in the midst of the narrative. It’s a device that worked so well in Watchmen...it’s cool to see Higgins and Siegel using it here.
Reis does remarkably good job of bringing 1964 to the page. There is a resonance to the era that feels very well present on the page. It's difficult to move the drama around on the page when it's all a lot of people sternly discussing politics early on. Reis doesn't try to oversell the drama either. He is very patient and almost courageous with how little everything feels amplified. When the action actually hits the page with Skylancer, the impact is all the more profound. There's a really cool transition from the fight scene to a casual conversation between friends that feels distinctly fresh. Reis does a brilliant job of bringing the contrast between the action and the drama together in a sequence that more or less seamlessly fuses one moment to a drastically different one.
The overall pacing of the issue seems really, really cool. there's a profile amount of depth to it. However, it feels kind of weird knowing that this year is already a quarter of the way finished by the end of the issue issue. One gets the feeling that a larger scope of what's going on be a bit difficult to pull off in for tiny issues of this sword. They do such a good job of, delivering the substance of the moment July 23, 1964. But it's just a snapshot of a single moment.
