A 250 word (or less) review of the complete Global Frequency
series
By Warren Ellis, Garry Leach, Simon Bisley, Glenn Fabry,
Chris Sprouse, Liam Sharpe, Karl Story, Roy Allan Martinez, Lee Bermejo, Jon J
Muth, Tomm Coker, David Lloyd, Jason Pearson, and Gene Ha; Verigto Comics
Global Frequency is an interesting comic. Structurally it’s a
collection of stand-alone comics written by Warren Ellis and each drawn by a
different artist. Collectively the comic follows the missions of The Global
Frequency, a kind of crowd-sourced rescue organization of loosely affiliated
experts and operatives founded by the enigmatic Miranda Zero to save the humanity
from the manufactured terrors of the modern world. Each individual chapter of
the Global Frequency sees Zero and Aleph, her mission coordinator/operator,
activate a network of “on the frequency” operatives to tackle threats from
runaway engineering projects to homegrown terrorist cults. It's an interesting
premise executed superbly. Now I could go on about all of the different little
reasons this comic resonated with me: like the striking similarities between
Global Frequency and my childhood beloved International Rescue, or the
groundbreaking use of crowd-sourcing in a book published before the rise of
social media, or the masterful way in which the done-in-one stories are executed...
but I think that's all secondary to what makes Global Frequency great. I think
ultimately what makes Global Frequency so effective is the sheer empathy of
these comics. In every single chapter Ellis conducts gigawatts of empathy into the
comic and this made me care about every single character and worry about every
single consequence, from the giant and existential to the small and personal.
This empathy elevates Global Frequency and makes it profound. Global
Frequency is smart, tense, and beautiful. It’s nearly perfection and I cannot recommend
it enough.
Word count: 250
(Incidentally I was wondering how this comic hasn't been made into a series, and apparently they once made a pilot... so... question answered, I guess.)
(Incidentally I was wondering how this comic hasn't been made into a series, and apparently they once made a pilot... so... question answered, I guess.)
