Noel Clarke's The Troop mixes superheroes and religious prophecy

Many geeks may know Noel Clarke as an actor. He played Mickey Smith in the first two season of DOCTOR WHO, and he had a major (but brief) role in STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS. But what many fans may not know is that Noel Clarke has also been touted as one of England’s hottest young writers and directors. His films (like 4.3.2.1, Kidulthood, and Adulthood) have been earning him all kinds of awards and recognition. So, when I head he would be writing a new spin on superheroes for Titan, I was definitely curious.

THE TROOP #1

Written by: Noel Clarke
Art by: Joshua Cassara
Colored: Luis Guerrero
Lettered by: Rona Simpson

Published by: Titan
Cover Price: $3.99

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

In THE TROOP, superpowers exist but they are kept on the down low. There are two factions looking to find superpowered individuals. There is a mysterious unnamed man who can teleport who has been trying to gather them. Over the course of the book, he manages to recruit three young supers. Standing against him is a paramilitary group called Point One. Point One seem to consider supers to be demonic, and they keep sending armored troops to try and find and execute them. There is a lot of talk about prophecy at work, and for good measure, a vampire shows up in the middle of the issue.

One of the biggest problems with a new superhero comic is that it is really hard to break new ground and stand out. The market is already pretty oversaturated, and when people are looking for superheroes, they will probably turn to Marvel or DC.  THE TROOP does seem to be trying to break some new ground here. It was pretty cool to add some religious and supernatural elements to mix here.

I also thought that most of the characters were really well developed in a real short period. Our heroes all have cool powers, and we get a strong sense of where they came from and how they got here. The book does suffer some because no one is really given any names which made ts a little more complicated than it needed to be, but that didn’t take away from my interest in the characters and what was going on. 

Another thing I loved about this book was the pacing. You start with action from the get-go, and the book pretty much never lets up. But it’s not just action without any sense of purpose or character. Pretty much everything you need to understand this first issue is laid out real clear for you. This is one of the most complete first issues I’ve read in a long time. THE TROOP also pulled no punches. The book basically starts with Point One murdering a dog and two sweet grandparents to get to one of the "demons." And one of the characters' superpowers is the ability to cause horrible and lethal boils to break out on people.

It’s great that even though it was 35 pages of content (no ads in the digital version I had), it was only $4. I say all the time that it’s vital if you want an audience for a new book, you have to give them some value. Marvel does $5 or even higher for a book this size. That always makes me hesitant to buy a new series.

The one major problem The Troop has is that I am just not sure there was enough new here to make it worth following. The religious and prophecy angles to help add something fresh, but at the same time, I did feel like they were mostly window dressing and not sure it will end up actually leading to something really new and different. I enjoyed this book enough to give it another shot, so I hope I will be proven wrong over time.

While I don’t know his work all that well before The Troop, Joshua Cassara was a great choice for artist here. He drew the action scenes with a tremendous energy to them. From pretty much page one, I was hooked immediately. There was a lot of quirky elements to this one, from a girl with rock skin to someone who manipulated fire, and even a vampire. All of them were drawn with great detail and it really caught my eye.

He also drew what might have been the hottest naked female I’ve ever seen in a comic book, but that is actually one of my complaints about this book. I had mentioned this last month in my review of BLACK MAGICK, but I think comics need to be real careful about age warnings. This book has some gratuitous nude shots of some of the main characters where you can see everything. I know some of the press for this book referred to it as “The X-Rated answer to the X-Men,” but there was nothing on the cover that warned it was for mature readers. I will pretty much repeat exactly what I said about BLACK MAGICK:”I’m not a prude, but I do often read my comics on public transportation. Breasts and bush shots without any warning can be a little problematic. It’s far from the end of the world, but I do think that publishers need to be careful about that kind of thing.” In addition, it is very possible a young Doctor Who fan might want to check this comic out because of Noel Clarke being the writer. Titan does put out the Doctor Who comics after all.

All in all, The Troop is a well-drawn comic with some great characters. I am not sure yet if the the setting will be fresh or new, but that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this issue. It definitely is one of the best first issues I’ve seen in a while when it comes to laying out the characters and the stories. There were a few nitpicky issues I had with it (such as gratuitous nudity and main characters never getting names), but it’s still worth checking out.