Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #1 (of 8)

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray

Art and Cover by Daniel Acuna

 

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters have long suffered the same fate that many of the superhero properties that DC Comics acquired from other companies did—DC never really figured out what to do with them.

 

They were assigned their own multiple earth (Earth-X, where Nazi Germany won World War II), then, during Crisis on Infinite Earths, got smooshed into the new DCU, where they never completely fit in or took off (See also Plastic Man and Captain Marvel).

 

Geoff Johns, DC's character repairman extraordinaire, seemed to have hit on a decent solution in the pages of JSA, mixing some 90's legacy characters (The Ray, Black Condor, Phantom Lady, Damage) with some originals (The Human Bomb, Uncle Sam) to form a superteam that served the U.S. government. Then he had them violently slaughtered in Infinite Crisis #1, with only the Ray, Damage and Sam seeming to survive at all.

 

This brings us to the new Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, featuring an FF composed of all new versions of the characters. Usually, by the time you get to the third or fourth iteration of a legacy character, it's a sign that maybe the character just doesn't work (this issue, for example, features The Ray III and Phantom Lady III, plus Firebrand IV). But these new versions of the old characters were thought up by DC's other repairman extraordinaire, Grant Morrison.

 

Morrison doesn't script the series, like The All-New Atom it is "based on concepts and ideas developed by Grant Morrison," but a lot of his style seems to permeate. He seems to have stripped the team down to a few core concepts from various, previous incarnations, and given them a 21st century spin.

 

On Earth-X, for example, the team fought against a world run by the bad guys. Here, the majority of the new FF members introduced work for those same bad guys, a corrupt agency in a corrupt U.S. government. In their '70s series, the FF were wrongly branded as outlaws and on the run from the feds, here Uncle Sam and his only recruit so far, Firebrand, are the subject of a manhunt.

 

As for the new FF, the characters aren't exactly likable, but they are given refreshing new spins. The new Phantom Lady is a Paris Hilton-esque party animal, the original's sexpot look exploded by artist Daniel Acuna into a sort of plastic porn star that's more monstrous than sexy. The new Doll Man has become more of Action Figure Man, and is a sort of human G.I. Joe toy with plenty of accessories to play with—think Captain America, but only six inches high. The Ray, personality-wise, seems like a more shallow version of the more Marvel-ous FF's Johnny Storm, but his powers are distinct—he rides light beams and bounces around the world on them, rather than flying independently, for example.

 

As a fan of the original characters and some of their '90s re-imaginings (particularly Christopher Preist and Howard Porter's The Ray series), I was ready to hate this new series, but the first issue has won me over with it's refreshing new takes and Acuna's solid design work (Well, aside from his Phantom Lady).

 

I'm not sure exactly where it's going, but it appears the stage is being set for a fight between the good Freedom Fighters and the bad Freedom Fighters, with this eight-issue miniseries acting as a sort of crucible to forge a new team.

 

And it looks like DC might finally know what they're doing with this group of characters.

 

Rating - 6