the_mighty_monarch's The Movement #1 - Eaten From the Inside Out review

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    Simone's Milestone

    This issue has a pretty nice cover, not my favorite but nothing wrong with it really aside from one major content factor, not a design choice. love the way the moon and the clouds form the symbol and almost look like the reflection in a lake create a deceptively layered image. But who is that girl on the bottom with the blonde hair? We meet everyone else on the cover except her. Though I like how if you look closely you can tell she's in a wheelchair. But it always bothers me when the first issue has characters who haven't appeared ever yet.

    But overall, this issue is much more like the Gail Simone I know and adore. Its abundantly clear from this first issue that this series is going to be dark and the morality is going to be very fuzzy. It's basically like Secret Six fused with Blood Syndicate. I've seen a lot of people take this at face value and it seems like a lot of people just missed the point. They're NOT supposed to be obvious heroes. Yes, we KNOW they act almost like a gang, and that the police force isn't corrupt; that's what creates the grounds for interesting morality exploration! Things are so far from black and white already and we've barely begun! But you need to remember going into this series, these are not supposed to be heroes. They're heroic, yes, but they're clearly anti-heroes of the greatest variety.

    Something that's for more understandably debatable is the unique way we're drawn into the world of The Movement. We don't really get into the heads of any of the characters yet, we follow the cops as they venture into their world and leave us behind, ready to be truly initiated in the second issue. The benefit to this kind of intro is partly to be introduced to the setting before the characters, because the setting is absolutely vital to understanding The Movement and their motivations. The other big advantage to this kind of intro goes along with my earlier point, they're not exactly a team of true heroes, we're getting a civilian's glimpse at them before our opinions are jaded by familiarity. We get to fully experience the vision of them as impure protagonists for the full impact of their gray area.

    The point of the morality is nailed absolutely when The Movement is just as antagonistic to the Lawful Good chief as they are to the rest of the police force, even if they are harsher to the corrupt cops. There's actually some interesting developments on the subplots of the police, but I'm hoping that it was sort of a trick to get us attached to their story as they venture outside their 'territory,' and most of these subplots don't need to be followed up on as we focus on the team. Like, the twist about The Captain's home life is brilliant in how it explains an almost throwaway line that stood out for being odd earlier in the issue; but I don't want the series to follow up on that too much.

    I'm intrigued by most of the team members themselves. Mouse is a pretty lazy name, and his eyebrows are a little too big, but I'm definitely interested in the rest. I love the balance of old characters, new characters, and recent characters. Tremor was a big surprise, but kind of makes sense to bring back after Simone's use of her in Secret Six. She appears to be de-aged, but her character design is pretty much unchanged. Katharsis was a big surprise to see, I thought she was still with Knightfall, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing her undergo character development, and I love the way Williams II draws her. Burden clearly has some deep mysteries and fierce powers, and Virtue has an interesting ability and surprising calmness, but I'm not sure how she's supposed to fight.

    In Conclusion: 4.5/5

    It wasn't perfect, but it gave me so much hope. As I've said many times, Gail Simone has earned a forever space in my heart as one of my all-time favorite writers for Secret Six, but her Batgirl run just hasn't gripped me much. But The Movement clearly shows me that she's still got that talent that won me over as a fan, and I look forward to seeing this intensely gray series unfold.

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      The Movement #1 Review 0

      ***SPOILER FREE REVIEW***When I first heard of The Movement, I was rather excited. It had all the elements of a sleeper hit: a well known, creative writer in Gail Simone (Batgirl), an artist with a unique style in Freddie Williams (Captain Atom) and new, potentially interesting characters. Unfortunately, The Movement #1 is more miss than hit, and a title that is more likely to share the New52 fate of "Mr. Terrific" than "Animal Man." Simone creates a non-linear narrative that is both difficult ...

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      The movement, good or bad? 0

      I have never been a Simone fanatic having never read secret six and do not particularly care for the occupy movement. That being said this isn't a bad concept, throughout the whole thing i actually couldn't decide whether to root for the cops (one cop in particular) or the movement of which out "heroes" are a part of. Some may not like this kind of uncertainty or goodness in their comics and for them i suggest they go back to superman and do not look here. These people are much farther into the ...

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