Everyone who reads comics in today's world still knows Jim Lee. So I am not going to waste time extolling his virtues in terms of awesome pencilwork and storytelling abilities but instead I am going to say that he is paired with an awesome colorist of his era and this entire issue is well balanced from the subtlety to the bold color moments. Just plain great!For the tale itself, well, as an opener, once again, there is great balance between introducing us to the main protagonists, the heroes, the villains and a few side plots. It opens with flashes of the past somewhere in Antartica where something happens but mind you if you read this series you will find that this flashback ties to a future issue and so this is relevant
Next up we are introduced to a midget, Jacob who starts off as a drunken street bum but within a few panels WOWZA we find out he is just a billionaire who enjoys slumming it and he has no recollection of who he was in the past until a weird looking silver lady found him and then with her assistance somehow made him into the billionaire that he is
Naturally at this point he supports her and her wishes. I mean, who wouldn't? But he still didn't believe her that he is going to be some sort of hero-saviour in the war amongst alien races. Yes, this is not about mutants but rather 2 alien races that crashed on earth years ago and each have grown hiding amongst the humans as humans developed and evolved. In addition, some of the alien spawn have intermarried with earthlings and their progeny now shows unique abilities
So with his wealth, our friend Jacob has been busy collecting these special individuals and housing them and training them to defend us mere mortals against the eventuality that some day, the bad aliens will come a calling
And who are the aliens? Well they are called Dire Wraiths ... nope that's from Rom ... they are called the Brood ... nah but they do look a bit like Brood but hey does it matter if the story line is awesome?
We are shown a few scenes into the baddies hideout as they too consolidate their moves and we are shown that amongst the baddies are 2 strong factions. One is muscle for hire and one, typically, world domination. So they are culling the weak from their world while planning to take over the world. That last page with the reveal of their mole in USA government? Rich!
Anyway to ensure that there is enough action, we also get to see the training of the good guys and a few small scum they encountered. For those who do not know the CATS the important members are:
Warblade - green hair and can stretch his hands like Mr Fantastic except he has these hands that can turn into metallic claws ala Wolverine
Maul - who can grow big and strong except the bigger he grows the dumber ala the old Hulk and he is purple too
Zealot - supposedly one of those good aliens who learned to fight and founded a sisterhood of warrior women who then went on to hire themselves in the world of men (say what). She is your obligatory bad girl dressed in her undies and wielding blades
Grifter - the loner who acts tough and wise cracks supposedly one liner funnies (though rarely do I find it funny) and jumps around shooting at things just like Gambit in his jacket
And then for the more boring members:
Adrian or Hadrian - the robotic guy who looks like human and can fly and shoot beams from his hand
Void - the silver lady who can teleport and supposedly very powerful but throughout the series we are rarely shown and thus rarely understood why she is supposedly very powerful as she is always taken down easily
There are a few more to go as the series progresses but for this issue, that's it. Good art, good story, good characters. If you haven't, then you need to read it
Ratings: 8/10
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