In first issues, we expect to be wowed, but historically shooting for the wow can be a bad investment, as sizzle can fizzle in a few issues time and peter out in an unsatisfying run. For every new X-Men #1 with 6 covers and 2 million copies, there are a dozen like Dazzler, Shogun Warriors, and Mr. Terrific. Or half the characters from First Issue Special, the anthology title that launched The Green Team in its second issue. It is reassuring that The Green Team has a solid start and declines the use of the usual first issue tricks. Instead of starting in the middle, it starts at the beginning, with Mohammed defying his father to meet Commodore Murphy; instead of needless action, we have conflict grounded in character instead as Mohammed meets Commodore Murphy, J. P. Houston, and Cecilia Sunbeam; instead of all-out spectacle, we get the low key “poxpo,” an event at which the Commodore finds the technological innovators that he wants to finance. The last few pages are a nod to traditional superheroing with the advent of Riot Act, a group of econo-terrorists, but by that time we have already witnessed the much more important creation of the group chemistry.
Presented as a bookend to The Movement, it would be a mistake to engage in too much comparison of that with The Green Team, especially considering they are more alike than different. Despite the presumed differences between the Haves in The Green Team and the Have Nots in The Movement, both seem to have limitless resources and a preternatural ability to stage off adversity or terrorists. Also, in the comic book world, complementary titles usually don’t have the same longevity; one book ends up getting cancelled out from under the other. The Movement is the more original of the two comics, but as we all know, originality and a high-profile creator aren’t proof of a strong concept–right, Devil Dinosaur?
CBR calls the Green Team concept–people buying superpowers–original, but let’s be honest; Iron Man smashed out of Vietnam in 1963, and Batman purchased batarang, utility belt, and batplane in 1939. In The Powerpuff Girls episode “Stuck Up, Up, and Away,” Princess Morbucks was told she couldn’t buy superpowers, to which she retorted, “oh yeah! Tell that to Batman!” And she promptly went out to buy some superpowers. And the purchasing of super powers is not limited to the filthy rich: even Wile E Coyote bought super powers from ACME. So it’s fairly well entrenched in the comics pages and has hit the mass media. It’s not an original concept, CBR, but definitely entertaining. Originality is overrated. As Shakespeare discovered when he set out to write his plays, all the best ideas have been used before. Borrowing from tradition is the best way of fabricating a solid concept. And the characters are very much original, even considering they are fleshed out from stereotypes and pastiches from the original Green Team comic. Yes, The Commodore’s armor is conspicuous given the success of a certain Marvel blockbuster movie right now. Don’t mistake the armor for the secret ingredient here; what distinguishes the boy genius is his own particular taste for balderdashery. Even if the literary formula for Iron Man was a proprietary recipe, The Commodore would reverse engineer it. This is the whiz kid that is backing a car that runs on Twitter. Underneath all the money the kid is a “hacktivist.”
This is all in all, a good thing. Superhero fiction has become a conservative genre, sticking to bank robbing, world domination, and other non-political and non-contentious crime fighting. At times, superheroes fight super villains in a never ending gang war in which the heroes aren’t much different than the villains. We’re a world away from the Superman that laid out a wife-beater and leapt a country mile with a dictator under each arm in Action Comics #1 (1938). What a breath of fresh air it is, in 2013, to read about superheroes with an appetite for social justice and social change. That the heroes come from privilege and still have the right attitude about things is wonderful. In The Green Team, Art and Franco are returning superhero fiction to its roots. And we still have at least one DC comic that parents can share with their kids.
