Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part XXI: Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume Two

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2005-06)
Borrowed from the library
Read April 2014

Seven Soldiers of Victory, Volume Two

Writer: Grant Morrison

Art: Frazer Irving, Pasqual Ferry, Ryan Sook & Mick Gray, Yanick Paquette & Serge Lapointe, Doug Mahnke, Billy Dallas Patton & Michael Bair, Freddie Williams II, J. H. Williams III
Colorists: Frazer Irving, J. H. Williams III, Dave McCaig, Nathan Eyring, Alex Sinclair, John Kalisz, Dave Stewart
Letterers: Pat Brosseau, Jared K. Fletcher, Phil Balsman, Nick J. Napolitano, Travis Lanham, Todd Klein

Seven Soldiers of Victory draws to a conclusion with the stories of three more of the soldiers: Mister Miracle, despite being even more bound up in Kirby's DC mythos than the Guardian, is less successful; I don't think Morrison was going for Kirby pastiche as much here, but then it's difficult for me to say what this story does accomplish.

Frankenstein is an odd one: a series of done-in-one adventures, basically, of a man too monstrous to live in society, but still trying to do good. Like the Hulk, I guess? It's Doug Mahnke's creepy, distorted art that really make these work, it makes the tone come across perfectly. His journey to the Sheeda homeworld is amazing; probably the best single issue in this volume.

The tales of the Bulletteer were probably my favorite, an examination of sex, power, and superheroics, but on the whole, I found the characters in this volume less involving than those in the first.

The whole thing is tied up in "The Miser's Coat". I don't pretend to understand it very much, but it has all the Soldiers lining up and accidentally-on-purpose defeating the Sheeda. No matter what happens, it looks gorgeous, moving through a range of artistic styles as it is revealed the story of the Sheeda goes all the way back to the first superhero-- the first man to wield fire. The narratives that had crossed and intersected before all jumble up here, and it is amazing, as comics meet newspaper reportage meet children's picture book meet crossword puzzle.

I like a lot of these characters and concepts, I hope I will see more of them going forward.