The Shield # 1
Writers: Adam Christopher & Chuck Wendig
Artist: Drew Johnson
Colorist: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letterer: Rachel Deering
Cover Date: December 2015
Rating: 
This week, I’ll look at The Shield # 1 from 2015 where the flagship hero of the Red Circle universe gets revamped under the newly christened “Dark Circle” imprint with Victoria Adams being the first woman to take up the mantle of The Shield. Let’s find out if it’s excellent…
This issue starts off with the introduction of Victoria Adams, a woman whose backstory is that she was a guerilla soldier during the revolutionary war in the late 1770s but part of her backstory is that she’s been able to awaken across the centuries while playing a part in every major conflict within the United States of America. This issue finds Victoria on the run from a clandestine society but her only ally is a detective named Nicole Simmons, who seems to have a vague idea of Victoria’s real identity while protecting her at all costs.
I felt that this series had some definite promise because of the intensity of the first issue and the action sequences were well-written despite moving at a fast-paced, but giving more time and support from Dark Circle (Apparently, low sales were the reason why this title, and many other titles, did not get an ongoing and shut down after the fourth or fifth issue); While writers Adam Christopher and Chuck Wendig do their best in breathing new life to The Shield, I wish they could have expanded more on Victoria Adams’ backstory instead of throwing the readers into a frenzy where the issue has more questions than answers so with that, both Christopher and Wendig expect the readers to take this with a grain of salt all while letting them know that things will pick up in the next three issues.
The idea of a woman taking on the mantle of The Shield is a welcoming change of pace to where she doesn’t feel like a Captain America rip-off this series could have been a game-changer for Archie Comics but once again, they dropped the ball on their beloved heroes which is a shame because The Shield, along with the rest of the Red Circle characters deserve their place in the hearts of many comic book fans who love superheroes but like everyone who loves these icons, I’ll be waiting when Archie finally decides to resurrect the Red Circle imprint but avoid the pitfalls that from the past so that they can look forward to an extremely bright future.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Thanks for sticking around and I will be back with another review.
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