Written by: Jay Faerber & Brian Jones
Art by: Ilias Kyriazis
Publisher: Image
Secret Identities as a series, so far, has been an interesting deconstruction of Silver Age super heroes. Focusing mainly on ideas of self-identity, in how people cope when these do not fit with the public’s view of ourselves and how easily we can be mislead by a false identity, the name of the comic has more meaning than may be initially presumed. After a stellar first issue this series faltered for me in issues two and three, spending too much time setting things up for later in the story and only focusing on Gaijin in a big way. Fortunately issue four spent more time looking at other, and in my opinion more unique, characters such as Punchline and Vesuvius while still progressing the overlying plot in a balanced manner.
Issue five seems to continue in this stride by focusing on Luminary while nearing the end of Gaijin’s arc. The issue consists mainly of telling Luminary’s origin, which is cleverly tied in through an appearance on a talk show by Luminary to promote a film about her superhero career. While this is going on Crosswind is trying to convince Gaijin to give into the ransom demands for her mob-boss, adopted brother that has been kidnapped (by Crosswind), saying that he has a plan. Peppered throughout this issue are hints and set-ups to the upcoming invasion that the series has been building towards, some explicit while others were more subtle and I enjoyed looking out for these as it causes you to read the issue multiple times to ensure you got them all.
My favorite part of this issue had to be Luminary promoting her film as her origin is shown to us as a part of a preview. The film origin is very tropey, very E.T.-esque, where everything is mysterious and wonderful and amazing which contrasts brilliantly with her actual origin, shown later in the issue, which is … none of those things. I enjoy how hard it is pushed that for Meredith Owens, Luminary is only a small part of her life. This goes against the fact that when people see her, all they see is this bastion of hope and justice as perfect and faultless as you’d find in a silver age comic like Superman, always on the job. The part that highlights this the best to me is when the actress playing Luminary in the film assumes that the reason Meredith turned down her invitation to party was due to Luminary being needed for some form of super hero duty rather than Meredith just wanting to go out by herself to be apart from the hero label for a while.
As for Gaijin’s part, I actually had fun reading it which surprised me as, to me, she is the least interesting character in the series due to her entire arc reminding me way too much of Artemis from Young Justice. What I liked about it was the two pages of dialogue between her and Crosswind in the corn field as he tries to manipulate her into taking the actions that will get him what he wants without showing his hand too early. The art really makes this scene come alive with the dark reds of the sunset, Gaijin’s almost over exaggerated movements, each panel being drawn closer to the characters and Ilias Kyriazis’ mastery of emotive facial expressions all working together to build tension throughout this scene as Gaijin is slowly convinced by Crosswind more and more.
I really can’t praise the art enough as it adds so much soul to each individual issue, I mean Kyriazis has been able to make what is effectively a collection of molten rocks show more emotion through body language than I have seen many other artists do with people. The paneling throughout this series has been somewhat experimental however and its results are rather hit and miss. For example, in the talk show scene the panels are laid against a backdrop of the audience showing eerily forced smiles that will haunt my dreams and I think this goes perfectly with how Meredith Owens would see them, seeing how uncomfortable she appears to be. Skip forward a few pages however and you have Heliot running out of a coffee shop, across the street and down the alley. The crossing the street bit is a huge diagonal panel which partly underlies the previous panel, it doesn’t seem to lend anything to the scene other than looking a bit odd.
Overall I really enjoyed this issue, as an exploration of the other Front Line members and progression of the plot it was everything I wanted. My only real gripe is questioning what it’s all building towards, is it Crosswind’s plot? Is it the fate of Gaijin’s brother? Is it the oncoming invasion? The story has so many threads up in the air already, with more sure to come from the other Front Line members, I fear it may get lost in them.
