Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza have written more superhero comic books than I can count, so when I heard that they were combining forces to create a new super-team at Image Comics in Free Agents, the title immediately grabbed my attention. Image Comics is no stranger to superheroes, helping to bring to life the likes of Invincible, Spawn, Savage Dragon, Cyberforce, and many more. The question is: Can this creative team following their new band of heroes from another dimension able to make good on the story’s premise, or do the Free Agents feel like another group of superheroes that will be lost in the comic book shuffle?
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What makes the Free Agents stand apart from their numerous crime-fighting brethren? To start, the superheroes known as Salvo, Pike, Katari, Shakti, Ridge, Maraud, and Chalice might be in the nebulous Image universe, but they are also a long way from home. Rather than starting their adventures in the same world as Al Simmons and Mark Grayson, the Free Agents find themselves stranded after fighting against countless battles across the multiverse. Unfortunately, they are no longer able to find their way home, and while they have established new lives on Earth, old threats may drag them back to the fight.
No comic reader will debate that the superhero genre is already a jam-packed one. It’s difficult to create new code names for heroes and villains as almost every word in the dictionary is associated with a crime fighter and/or villain hellbent on ruling the world. Busiek and Nicieza are no strangers to creating superheroes while also tackling some of the biggest names in the business such as The Avengers. That’s what makes Free Agents so disappointing in that the writing duo isn’t able to truly make these characters, and their setting, compelling enough to separate them from so many other hero teams out there.
On paper, the series has a strong enough hook to reel fans in when it comes to a far-away-from-home superteam that is now trapped in protecting a world that is not its own. Unfortunately, the Free Agents have so many different characters and moving pieces that make up their world that nearly all of it gets lost in the shuffle. There’s an interesting attempt to follow the main heroes in their day-to-day lives but spreading out panel time between so many characters means that readers don’t have much space to get to know these characters. For an opening salvo, Free Agents #1 would have been better served focusing on a few perspectives rather than so many, or emphasizing their mundane lives or superheroics, but not both.
Swinging around to the idea of originality in pushing a new superhero team, the characters themselves simply don’t have enough definition individually set themselves apart. Readers don’t receive sufficient space to wrap their heads around the Free Agents’ current predicament. We also don’t get enough focus on each character individually, which would be fine for an opening salvo, but it doesn’t feel as though there are enough compelling hooks to keep readers in their seats to want to experience what’s still to come.
Stephen Mooney’s artwork suffers from a lot of the problems that the overall stories does in that it feels cluttered and loses some detail that would be necessary to introduce a new superhero team to Image Comics. Normally, it’s easy enough to look past some minor problems with comic book artwork but on more than one occasion in Free Agents #1, there is a lack of structure in the composition that sets the issue back. I would often find myself lost between locales and times as transitions were unclear and backgrounds lacked detail to inform readers where exactly the story was moving. While there are some strong images in the premiere’s final pages, they are diamonds in the rough.
It’s sad to see Free Agents stumble with its opening issue especially given the pedigree of its creators, but that’s indeed what this alternate-reality superteam does. Free Agents #1 is unable to coalesce around some of its more interesting ideas, making it feel more like a missed opportunity than anything else.
Published by Image Comics
On July 3, 2024
Written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza
Art by Stephen Mooney
Colors by Triona Tree Farrell
Letters by Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith
Cover by Stephen Mooney and Triona Farrell
