DC's Super Team Fights Real Nazis in Freedom Fighters 1

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Freedom Fighters 1 2018

I was a huge fan of the FREEDOM FIGHTERS comics in the late 1970s. These books featured the Quality Comics characters acquired by DC -- Uncle Sam, Phantom Lady, Black Condor, Doll Man, The Ray, The Human Bomb, and The Red Bee -- and formed them into a team of heroes, banded together to fight the Nazis on Earth X, a parallel dimension where Germany won World War II and conquered the United States.

There have been various attempts to revive the team with a more modern angle to them. This newest version from Robert Venditti and Eddy Barrows, however, succeeds by sticking the closest to its roots. The book opens in 1963 with what remains of the Freedom Fighters planning an assault on a Nazi robot-making factory. However, their plans are foiled by an infiltration of Plastic Men (or PlaSStic Men, with the SS done in the Nazi SS style), and they are captured and summarily executed. Only Uncle Sam remains, barely escaping the Plasstic Men by pulling a Jedi death.

Fast forward 55 years to modern day. Most people alive don't remember a life before the war. The old people were children when the invasion ended.

And from nowhere, a new group of Freedom Fighters emerge. A new Black Condor, a new Phantom Lady, a new Human Bomb -- and a Doll Woman.

Here's where I sort of lose the plot. I don't mind that the new characters are copies of the old ones -- it's a legacy thing, and the Freedom Fighters were symbols to be imitated. But the explanation for Doll Woman is that she is the wife of the original Doll Man. Who died 55 years earlier in the story. Which would make her at the VERY least 75 years old. And she's looking pretty spry. Venditti's going to have to whip out a time portal or a cryogenic chamber or an iceberg or something, I'm sure he'll pull off something credible, though, and with some incredible art from Barrows, I'm looking forward to the next eleven issues and, hopefully, beyond.

Grade: 
4.5 / 5.0