The Red Ten.

Written by: Tyler James
Art by: Cesar Feliciano pencils, Vic Moya inks
Colors: Guillermo Ucha
Cover: CP Wilson III

Part 1 156 pages
Part 2 160 pages
Published by Comics Tribe.

Buy them here.

I've had a hard time

making up my mind whether The Red Ten is a graphic novel I'd recommend. There's merit in it, for sure. It exudes a lot of joy and hard labor wrought by a team of creatives that were obviously pouring their hearts out in this. Anything less than an enthusiastic endorsement would sound I've secretly got standards that didn't get met -or at least betray a trace of disappointment. And so it is difficult for me to sum up Red Ten in a simple 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' reaction. The artwork has a high degree of polish. Since I didn't come into the story with any real expectations I can't say there was disappointment.

Maybe to be fair I'll simply start with a list of ten of my own, like so:

Four things this comic did sufficiently.
Three things this comic kinda missed the boat on.
One thing that REALLY kicked me out of the story.
One thing that it completely crushed in an exemplar way.
One thing that it did so well that pushed the envelope of the medium.

Fair enough? Okay let's go!

Four sufficient things.

1. The heft of the books. You can tell just by picking them up that Tyler and Cesar are no slouches in delivering the goods.

2. They're fun. I didn't sense any 'preciousness' of any one character. They cavort and behave in an arena where anything can happen... and does.

3. Lettering is top notch. In that I never noticed its styling or design, like when you're too busy reading the story and don't get any 'speedbumps' of awkward balloon placement, bad font choice or wrong tails.

4. It's well structured. The repeated motif of the Super Hero face grid, one by one getting greased was a smart move. If you missed a detail or two in the story you get a quick sum-up by returning to the grid at the end of each chapter.

Three 'missed the boat' things.

1. Here's where I got to be harsh. Red Ten's 'fictitious superhero universe' (in that it doesn't share anything with The Big Two) draws unavoidable parallels with The Watchmen. But with Alan Moore I got a sense of dread, and an overarching theme of failure and catastrophe, like there were real consequences. Didn't sense that here.

2. The fight scenes. This is where my biases lie, because the Gold Standard is something like Kirby or Ditko. Cesar might've tried to be more adventurous in showing the true power and devastation of the fight scenes.

3. The drawing of children. This is always hard to bring down. But surely Cesar's flashback scenes when they were kids gets a bit cringe worthy. He needs to pick up one of those 'how to draw women, men and children' books at the art supply store.

One 'kicked me out of the story' moment.

Bellona's ass. There's a lovemaking scene where I thought her body made no sense whatsoever. Cesar can do better (and did).

One thing it crushed.

EEEYAHHH!!!

The Xena-like last flying attack of Bellona in full battle gear in the moonlight. Great work!

And finally... the one thing it did so well that it pushed the envelope:

Can I say just simply getting the frickin' thing done?

There are so many comic book creators who dream up Super Hero Universes like this. 99.99% of them never make it past the first issue, never mind telling a rich, engrossing story from start to finish!

The Red Ten just by existing is a testament to Tyler James' and Cesar Feliciano's stick-to-it-ness to get this project realized. It's a lot of fun to see this happen. Like I mentioned in the previous article, this reminds me of the positive energy and drive your Saturday Morning Cartoon watching kids from the Eighties and Nineties would put out into the world gleaned off X-Men and G.I. Joe. More power to them!!

-Tim Larsen.

10454 Lomita Ave #B, Felton
United States

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