Crime Syndicate #2

Crime Syndicate #2

DC Comics 2021

Written by Andy Schmidt

Pencilled by Kieran McKeown

Inked by Dexter Vines

Coloured by Steve Oliff

Lettered by Rob Leigh

With Starro ravaging the planet and controlling superheroes and villains alike, the fate of the world rests in the hands of Ultraman, Superia, and Owlman-in other words, win or lose, humanity is doomed!

I like that the Crime Syndicate is going to have an official origin that mimics the Justice League’s but what I don’t care for is that they’ve been given new names and origins that kind of don’t match. I mean Superwoman is this worlds Donna Troy? Is this because of the whole there’s a Donna Troy in ever reality kind of deal from a number of years ago? Yeah not a fan of that I mean a disgraced Amazon should’ve been Diana but i’m not here to quibble. The reality is that this is not the Crime Syndicate it’s a new version of it that comes with the new multiverse. So let us concentrate on that shall we. I have to admit that seeing this world populated by a vast array of metahumans is interesting and that only a handful are going to make up the Syndicate’s roster well that’s okay by me. What this does is opens up a slew of potential for books and stories I mean a Teen Titans or Hawk & Dove just to name two.

I love the way that this is being told. How we see the story & plot development through how the sequence of event unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. This is tied into the character development that we see as well and while Owlman is very much like Batman in his thinking it’s the others who deviate from their counterparts thanks to how we see them acting and reacting to the situations and circumstances they encounter. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the reasons why Ultraman wants and is fighting Superwoman we’re caught up in the distraction as much happens around them.

How we see this being structured with the layers within the story continuing and newly emerging are helping to shape this up to be a stellar event. I am enjoying how we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story constantly forward at the same time.

The interiors here are rather nicely done. Thee does seem to be a consistency issue here however because after Donna give us President Queen the two pages, that and the one after, don’t exactly appear like the one person did them. The linework is nicely laid down and how we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work shows a serious knack for the gig. The inking is excellent and it helps to bring this to life nicely. The way that backgrounds are utilised could be a tad better but they do help to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work puts the final touches on what we see here beautifully. The way the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely well rendered.

​

I can get behind this and I know it’s a limited series but this world is just getting started and it’ll be interesting to see just how these characters can come together to defeat Starro and then remain together without trying to kill each other. I mean this isn’t your fathers Legion of Doom it is much worse than that so I expect great things to happen by the last issue. What’s the old tag line, the New DC there’s no stopping us now!?!