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When Marcos Martin left the acclaimed Daredevil relaunch after just a handful of eye-poppingly gorgeous issues, readers had to take consolation with the rumored reason for the departure—that the dazzling visual stylist behind many of Marvel’s best and most elusive variant covers was headed off to work on a top-secret, creator-owned project with his Doctor Strange: The Oath collaborator, Brian K. Vaughan.  As BKV returned to take comics by storm with his latest ongoing series, Saga (illustrated by Fiona Staples), news of his project with Martin was frustratingly elusive. Now, after an ultra-vague teaser image released only yesterday, the duo rocked the comics world this morning by releasing the first issue of their new project, The Private Eye, exclusively online at panelsyndicate.com. Much like Radiohead’s 2008 album In Rainbows, Vaughan and Martin surprised everyone even more with a pay-what-you-want pricing scheme that lets you buy the issue in PDF form for as little as $0.00, if you’re so inclined. Tempting, no doubt, but when a comic is as good as The Private Eye is, you’re going to want to pay something for it, guaranteed.

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The Private Eye is set during America’s Tricentennial, where due to a massive compromise of everyone’s online info, nearly everybody in the world has adopted a secret identity, or “Nym”. Investigator Patrick Immelman makes his living catching people with their masks off and selling their real faces to interested parties. When a mystery woman (of course) shows up at Patrick’s office to ask him exactly how much dirt he can dig up on her, he takes the case, not realizing the danger they will both be in because of it.

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Vaughan is no stranger to delivering a killer first issue, a skill he’s proven time and again—go back and revisit the opening salvos of Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Ex Machina, and Saga to see what I mean. Of course, The Private Eye is no exception; in thirty-two pages, we’re treated to a crazed vision of the future, a thrilling chase across rooftops and rails, a blast of prescient humour (ever wonder what a kid born into today’s world of iPhones and Wifi will be like as a cranky senior? Wonder no more when you meet Patrick’s Gramps), a compelling mystery, and a creepily suspenseful final page. Martin’s minimalist, expertly-arranged pages (rendered in glorious color by Muntsa Vicente) are beautiful to behold, and you’ll be thankful for the ability to zoom in on some of the elaborate wide shots of the comic’s futuristic cityscapes and bizarre, masked denizens. According to BKV’s editorial page, The Private Eye is scheduled to run for ten installments, but the world hinted at in the debut could certainly support plenty more (the editorial also hints at different digital-only offers in the future). The only disappointment here is that the author claims he and Martin have no plans to offer the comic in any physical form ever—sad news for any fans without a tablet to read it on. If The Private Eye’s prophesied “cloudburst” ever does take place, we’ll all be out of luck. I know I’d certainly pay again to get a deluxe hardcover edition, just in case.

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