I usually dislike reviewing single issues of a comic books as I feel that you can’t get a right feel for the comic based solely on one issue and some of the problems you may have in one issue may be resolved by the next one, making your complaints moot. But I decided to make an exception for this particular title as it sort of came out of no where and got my attention almost instantly.
For the longest time now I’ve had this need to read a heist comic book, I tried Thief of Thieves and while it was solid, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Thankfully Uncanny #1 scratches this itch of mine and delivers a very satisfying first issue.
Uncanny follows the story of Weaver, a man who steals for a living and accomplishes this thanks to his special ability, a power that lets him absorb the memories, skills and personalities of anyone he touches for a few minutes and unlike Rogue from the X-Men where people would almost die when she touched them, Weavers power is able to acquire all of these things without it affecting his targets what so ever.
When we first meet Weaver he’s playing Poker with a rich Chinese businessman known as Mr. Lee and he thinks he’s going to win for sure thanks to his power. Things don’t go as planned and Weaver finds himself on the run and is forced to ally himself with other “special” people like him.
The character of Weaver is an interesting one. It’s obvious that he’s been doing this for a very long time now and that is apparent in the way he talks, acts and thinks. He’s a man confident in his abilities, and when his plan doesn’t go exactly as he thought it would, he is surprised as anyone in his position would be but he’s able to appropriately adapt to the situation at hand and his sarcastic remarks are genuinely funny. If you like characters like James Bond or Nathan Drake, you will love Weaver.
One of the things I really liked was the setting and tone of the book, its a world grounded in reality akin to Nolan’s Batman films and the tone feels like a noir thriller with supernatural elements. You won’t see characters perform outlandish things here, everything that happens in this book feels like it could happen in the real world and the book manages to use this fact to its advantage.
Aaron Campbell is the reason why these elements all work as well as they do. In many of my previous reviews I generally gloss over the art and end up barely mentioning it. But here the art is pivotal as it enhances the tone and setting. The color palette feels like this pulp film set in the 21st century, it really sucks you in and it truly shines during the action scenes all of which are very dynamic, exciting and cinematic.
That’s the key word with this book, cinematic. Everything in here feels like a film and for a premise such as this, I think it’s a key element in order pull this kind of story off effectively and thats exactly what Diggle and Campbell do here. By combining their writing and art, they’ve crafted a very interesting world and protagonist, both of which instantly grabbed my attention and held it until the issue was over.
Uncanny #1 was a pleasant surprise and its easily one my favorite issue of the year thus far, its something all fans of heist films or characters such as Nathan Drake or James Bond should check out because I can assure you, you will not be disappointed and its well worth the $ 3.99.
FINAL VERDICT: A+
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