THE AGENCY #1

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Thursday, July 26, 2001

It's the late 21st century, and the world's gone to hell. Most of the population is addicted to cyberspace, the crime rate is at 101%, and police recruitment is understandably down. Virtual Jonez works for the Agency, a collection of freelance law enforcement personnel who take care of criminals for a hefty price. Her partners include Sioux, a type of technologically enhanced telepath; Kerrick, a man with the ability to use the entirety of his DNA, with shocking results; and criminal profiler David Siam. Their latest case involves a string of brutal murders, and Siam thinks he knows who the killer is.

THE AGENCY is one of those books that makes you want so much not to like it that you end up doing so in spite of yourself. The setting is yet another apocalyptic vision of the future, this one caused by an overabundance of technology and global warming; the characters are the type of hard-boiled borderline psychopaths that populate the low-budget "thrillers" on the Action Channel; and the artwork is dripping in gratuitous gore. And yet, if you can get past all that, it's actually pretty good.

A large part of that comes from the care that Paul Jenkins takes with the writing. In most gore-streaked post-apocalyptic action comics, you'd expect a large helping of empty, testosterone-driven dialogue, but Jenkins doesn't let the script stay at that level for long. He somehow manages to imbue these people, especially the first-person narrator Virtual, with enough personality that even when they're spouting off the typical "tougher than thou" dialogue, it somehow sounds more genuine than it normally does. It also helps that we see this world through her eyes, and she appears to be both smarter and more sensitive than most of her counterparts. The only unredeemable character is the aforementioned Kerrick, but Jenkins takes pains to show that Kerrick's not being held up as an ideal to follow. Bet he'll be the first action figure made when this book takes off, though.

Unfortunately, there's no real justification for the gory artwork apart from the fact that it simply fits with this type of story. Rather than completely crossing the line of good taste, the artwork somehow hovers over the line in a disturbing way. These aren't comfortable images some of them are downright nightmarish, in fact and one could argue that this isn't meant to be a comfortable story. Some of Kyle Hotz's artwork is brilliantly done, especially the opening four pages which mirror the opening credits of a film, but the middle section of the book and the last two pages should be avoided by the squeamish. A Comics Code Approved book this is not.

I'll freely admit that this isn't my preferred genre of comic book, but there are enough promising elements in this first issue to make me want to see where the series is going. If nothing else, I'd like to find out exactly why I like it so much. So should you.

THE AGENCY

Grade: B

Issue: No. 1

Author(s): Paul Jenkins, Kyle Hotz

Publisher: Image Comics/Top Cow

Price: $2.50

 

More From Mania

Mania Exclusive: Tony Millionaire and Eric Kaplan on DRINKY CROW

Gough Gives Season 7 Details of SMALLVILLE
(Wednesday, August 29, 2007)
Comicscape - January 12, 2005
(Wednesday, January 12, 2005)
Hits and Misses
(Monday, November 15, 2004)
Operation Kryptonite
(Monday, June 23, 2003)
GUN FU #1
(Wednesday, November 13, 2002)
YOUNG JUSTICE #50
(Saturday, October 19, 2002)
This Month in Four Colors - July 2002
(Saturday, July 13, 2002)

See more related content