Faith #1
Writer: Jody Houser
Art: Pere Perez
Fantasy Sequence Art: Marguerite Sauvage
Origin Sequence Art: Colleen Doran
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Publisher: Valiant Comics
Available: In stores now
For those of you who missed the Faith mini series earlier this year, this first issue gives you a good idea of who Faith is and why she’s awesome, but with a slightly different take so that those of us who loved the mini are learning new things about our favorite super-heroine. We see her making new friends as her alter-ego Summer, stopping a robber as Zephyr, and then just being Faith with her new boyfriend. Faith is a big fan of the things she’s a fan of, is willing to try new things, and is confident around all kinds of people. Her boss (who knows that Summer is Faith) throws a monkey-wrench into her normal life, as do her two co-workers who know her identity (as revealed in the mini series). Truthfully, though, handling monkey wrenches really IS Faith’s normal life.
Jody Houser again writes a story that is full of understanding on how the single young woman deals with the double-life of a superhero with joy and panache and sometimes a little heartache and misunderstanding. Since Faith IS the modern fan girl as well as a superhero, she likes games, argues comics plots, and gets crushes on celebrities just like the rest of us do. She wants to do what is right, but sometimes the right path is a little cloudy and she just has to do the best she can. Even asking others for advice is risky, because she can’t really tell her whole story to everyone. Excited to see how they explore that.
Everything that I liked about Houser in the mini-series holds true – I like the language and the freshness of the world she’s created from the ashes of Harbinger to make Faith Herbert a hero that anyone could look up to.
Pere Perez takes over regular art duties on this book and does a fine job carrying on the high-quality art as started by Francis Portella. Looking forward to seeing just what Perez can do in this world. Marguerite Sauvage still does fantastic dream sequences, making Faith more womanly and voluptuous than ever, and the flashback scenes by Colleen Doran hearken back so strongly to Faith’s 90’s origins, but in a very good way.
So glad that they decided to go ahead with Faith. People need all kinds of heroes in their lives, of all shapes and sizes and all ethnicities. Heroes don’t all have to look one way, and that’s certainly enough to give one Faith.
