Written by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Illustrated by Scott Kowalchuk
“CYBORGS, BABOONS AND BEARS! OH, MY!”
The action packed finale that will have you high-fiving and fist-pumping in public places. With the true villain revealed, the Intrepids must face their darkest fears and most powerful enemy. A full-scale epic brawl for the fate of humanity. Enter the cyber-bears!
Anything that can induce high-fiving and fist-pumping in its readers will be something I fight to the death to review. Thankfully, it didn’t have to come to that with The Intrepids #6, as I review today’s release of the final issue of that excellent Image mini-series. Make sure to pick it up at your local comic book shop today, or, at the very least, pre-order the trade if you haven’t been buying the other issues.
Find out my thoughts after the jump.
In this day and age of comics, most books tend to favor the “nothing will ever be the same!” vein of storytelling of mega events like Flashpoint or Fear Itself. Perhaps favor is not the proper word, given the overall response to those events, but those are what sell well because that is what the industry pushes upon us fans.
But really, what those readers are looking for when they buy those books are the thrills of their youth. The child-like glee and the wonder everyone experienced when they first read comics. The whiz bang pop and the buzz you feel when you know that what you just read was one hell of a good time.
While those feelings are mostly absent when reading Big Two books these days, Kurtis Wiebe and Scott Kowalchuk have successfully recreated those feelings people enjoyed so much about comics without being forced to abandon adult themes or modern storytelling techniques with their book The Intrepids, and every single person who picked up this mini-series is all the better for it.
With this sixth and final issue of the first (but hopefully not last) volume of The Intrepids, Wiebe and Kowalchuk pull out all of the stops. Whether you’re talking Darius Dread and his unit of uzi toting simians from the second issue or the beloved Cyber-Bear from the first issue or any number of other elements, this book finds all of the story elements previously laid out crashing together for one big brouhaha as The Intrepids square off against their once mentor Dante in this issue.
I have to say, the more wild aspects of the story – like the aforementioned cyber-bear or the machine gun mandrills – would have been enough for me to pick this book up, but it’s the way Wiebe grounds the story that makes the book soar. The Intrepids aren’t so much a squad of youthful super spies as they are a family. Four disparate personalities who were brought together by one man to do extraordinary things, but in the midst of all of that they found happiness and solidarity within their ranks and each other.
Wiebe’s execution of that relationship between the four of them becomes the emotional cornerstone of the book, and it is something that builds to a beautiful crescendo at the close of this issue as team leader Crystal confronts their former mentor Dante.
While it closed excellently as a stand-alone issue, a little part of me has to envy those who get to read this mini in trade. The issues will develop together, allowing your emotional bond for the characters and your perception of the emotional bonds between the characters to solidify all the more, making the finale all the more resonant for you as a reader. It already does that through the individual issues, but man, this book will kill when read as a trade.
But it’s not just Wiebe who brings a lot to the table on this book. No matter what is asked to be rendered on the page, artist Scott Kowalchuk completely nails it. Whether he’s depicting a scene featuring a cyborg bear with a gatling gun attached to its back or a showdown between a man and his protege to life, his efforts in this book are completely spot on.
Continued belowI love the way that Kowalchuk can effortlessly blend the wild ideas of the story with a look that seems ripped out of yesteryear, yet still place all of that within page and scene design that gives the whole thing a real sense of energy and life. You will believe that cyber-bears can fight cattle prod carrying apes thanks to Kowalchuk’s stellar execution.
Kowalchuk is the type of guy whose work excels both at storytelling and design, and this issue is excellent at highlighting his gifts in both.
This issue does it all. It ends the series with all of the plot threads tied together in a nice little bow. It entertains and it surprises. It gives us the emotional closure of the arc that Wiebe and Kowalchuk have been building.
As far as mini-series ends go, this gives you everything you could want. Sure, this whole series is not going to alter any universe forever or anything of that sort. But I can promise you this…The Intrepids is a book that you will have a blast reading.
In this day and age, I could use a lot more of that from my comics.
Now let’s get a second volume going, okay gents?
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Buy
