In a time where I\'m becoming ever more disillusioned with the writers I\'ve come to love since the mid-Nineties, Warren Ellis still writes a fucking great story. Some of my favorite writers lately have taken assignments or put out books that I thought would never pass muster within the standards I thought they would have. Luckily, I recently came across Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner\'s RED. (NOTE: Apparently, RED came out in Fall of 2003. I remember seeing it on shelves, but never picked it up. Now that I\'ve read it, I wish I had earlier.)
This story of a retired CIA assassin brought back into the life by a green CIA director who wants to erase him quickly picks up speed in the first of its three issues, and is balls-to-the-wall action packed until it ends. Paul Moses kills, and he kills well. He killed and put his life on the line every day for the government that trained him. Now, as an older man, he just wants to take his retirement and live in peace to contemplate the things he\'s done in solidarity. As a new director of the CIA is initiated, he is briefed on Moses\' career and insists that he must not live to tell anyone of what he\'s done. Sending out assassins to kill him is the biggest mistake of his life.
Ellis\' story is fast paced and to the point. There\'s not a lot of extraneous exposition to bog the story down. That suits this particular story very well. The characters seem relatively shallow and stereotypical on the surface, but we see that they all have a deeper motivation as the story progresses, and they end up having a definite distinction from any of those typical archetypes we\'ve all seen in the past.
Cully Hamner\'s art in this series is nothing short of spectacular. Camera angles, pacing, facial expressions, and posturing are all phenomenal-- he\'s the total package. It feels like Hamner and Ellis were working side-by-side in interpreting the visuals for this story. In long sequences of panels with no words but a lot of action, everything still has a very natural and organic flow. Ellis\' dynamic words translated exactly into stunning sequences of visuals.
Hamner also has the balance of black-and-white down to a science. Honestly, I can\'t even find the words to describe the impact with which his patterning of blacks-and-whites hits me. The only negative thing I can say about his work is that everybody\'s hands seem a little bulky and clunky, but that\'s just me being picky, and I feel like a dick for saying it.
So go, find this and read it. I\'m sure that you can find it somewhere in original issues. It\'s under the Homage Comics banner from Wildstorm, which is now owned by DC, so... eh... good hunting. Just ask the guy behind the counter at your comic shop. If you can\'t find the original issues, I think that the only collected version available is in the same book as another Ellis tale, Tokyo Storm Warning, which I\'ve read is kind of a stinker. You can find that here. Enjoy.