Incognito #1

Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips

Brubaker and Phillips are an amazing team. Their series Sleeper was incredible, and Criminal is without doubt the best book that Marvel publishes.

Incognito is their new work - a story about a super-villain in the Witness Protection Program, who is having a hard time adjusting to a normal, 9 to 5, powerless existence.

The concept is not exactly original - books about super-villains have become very common lately - but their execution of this concept is very interesting. The first issue is mostly about setting up characters and settings, and you learn very early on that Zack is not a nice guy. Neither is his handler though. Nor is the hot girl he works with. Actually, there are no nice people in this comic.

This series is Brubaker's homage to the conventions of the pulp novel, and, as Criminal does with film noir, it will have articles about the famous pulp series of the day. I never knew that The Shadow in the books was not the same as the one on the radio.