No, this isn’t a series about the secret group of world-controlling AIs set up in the 60s that control the world through information control and have the ability to control American presidential elections, this is– wait, what’s that? I’m making another Metal Gear joke? Oh, goddammit.
Check out our full spoiler free review of Joshua Williamson and Shawn Crystal’s “Illuminati” #1 down below.
Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Shawn Crystal
“Bad guys win every day… why not us?”
How do the villains of the Marvel Universe live in a world where the sky is constantly filled with heroes? What do they do when they want out of that life? There is no escape. No future. Who saves the villains? The Hood believes he might be that savior. He wants everyone to have a place at the table. Now all he needs to do is build his army. Featuring Titania, Mad Thinker, Thunderball, Black Ant and Enchantress, Illuminati is a tale of villains just trying to survive in the All-New All-Different Marvel Universe.
Even as weird as the Marvel Universe is, The Hood is a pretty strange character. Created by Brian K. Vaughn, Kyle Hotz and Eric Powell in a MAX series, he was essentially the Peter Parker of supervillains. Hell, his name is Parker, for crying out loud! He was a down on his luck kid who stumbles upon great power, but instead of using it to fight crime he used it to commit crime. His original series was a pretty self-contained story that simply explored the idea of the Peter Parker archetype if you flipped it on it’s head, but since then he’s been brought into the mainstream Marvel Universe and here, in “Illuminati” #1, Joshua Williamson and Shawn Crystal are exploring what happens when you give a small time crook unlimited power.
The thing about “Illuminati” #1 that’s most surprising is that, despite all of Marvel’s marketing, this turned out to be an entirely different style of series than I was expecting. From Riley Rossmo’s cover to “Nailbiter”‘s Joshua Williamson being the writer to the focus on The Hood in the marketing, I went into this issue expecting one thing and got something entirely different. A lot of that has to do with the artwork. Shawn Crystal’s style was not the usual gruff, grim and gritty style I was expecting for what had been marketed as, essentially, something of a horror crime book. Instead, Crystal’s artwork is much lighter and pretty cartoon-y in a Kyle Baker sense with light linework that seems representative of soft lead pencils or even crayons in certain panels. Be sure, this isn’t the grand, operatic drama about the hubris of man and the end of the world that Jonathan Hickman wrote with the Illuminati. This is something a bit more fun and a bit more human all together.
Despite what the cover (or my first paragraph) might tell you, The Hood isn’t actually the main character of “Illuminati” #1, Titania is. This is an interesting shift in perspective that I wasn’t quite expecting, but Williamson and Crystal use that change in perspective to introduce us to the character as she’s trying to go straight and turn her life around and show just how hard that is for supervillains to go straight in the Marvle Universe. Williamson uses this to immediately grip us by showing us a sympathetic angle to a character that you would never have thought would be sympathetic and tying that in to Crystal’s lighter style of artwork brings a lot of warmth and humour to Crystal’s story. The ultimate example of that is the scene where two major Marvel characters show up that, honestly, I’d rather not spoil, but one of them is wearing a shirt that made me howl with laughter when I saw it. The last thing I expected to do when reading a book called “Illuminati” is laugh.
Yet warm humour and light action is really the core element of “Illuminati”. Shawn Crystal’s artwork lends itself to incredible action in the issue, showing the destructive capabilities of characters with superpowers in a very cartoon-y, exaggerated way without taking away from the light style of artwork. The fight scene in the middle of this issue is actually incredible to behold and shows Crystal as a very impressive artist who is able to channel the weirdness of the Marvel Universe through a visual style that remains light and visually comedic in some panels without breaking the tension of Williamson’s script. It’s a very fine line that the artwork walks and while the effect is surprisingly closer to “Superior Foes Of Spider-Man” than “New Avengers”, Crystal manages to pull it off perfectly in this issue.
Continued belowThe only downside to this issue is that, despite the team being assembled on the cover and it highlighting The Hood as the major character in the story, he doesn’t show up until more than halfway through the issue and the transition from Titania’s story to him introducing the concept of the Illuminati is pretty jarring. He essentially shows up out of nowhere only to grab Titania and sit her down, explaining that he’s putting a team together all Tony Stark at the end of The Incredible Hulk style before we get one panel that introduces the rest of the team in name only before the issue’s over. While Williamson and Crystal do a great job at introducing tone and lightness and humour through Titania’s story in the opening of the issue, the concept of the Illuminati itself shows up almost as afterthought in the last couple of pages and you’re left without much of an idea of who the group is or why they’ve been brought together. It’s a strange feeling because Titania’s story is an element of this issue is one that was entirely unexpected and yet, looking back, it’s the part of the issue that’s the most engaging.
All in all, this is still a strong debut from Williamson and Crystal if you’re looking for a series that takes a look at the criminal underbelly of the Marvel Universe while retaining a warm sense of humour. I don’t want to stress this as a spiritual successor to “Superior Foes Of Spider-Man” too much, but it’s a safe bet that fans of that series will likely be interested in this. However, we’ll need to see in the next issue whether Williamson and Crystal will be able to transition from Titania’s story, which was genuinely engaging and had a very strong human element mixed in with some humour, to the actual story of the Illuminati group while keeping that human element and, hopefully, the humour intact.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – It’s hard not to look at this issue as a kind of one-and-done story about Titania that just happens to have a mention of the Illuminati group tacked on at the end, but if you’re looking for something with humanity, humour and warmth then look no further.
