Review by Win Wiacek
As the first super team in comics the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a landmark, while Kobra originated in his own short-lived title during a period of desperate experimentation during the 1970s as traditional superhero sales were plummeting. Credited to Martin Pasko, Steve Sherman, Jack Kirby and Pablo Marcos, the saga was a radical updating of Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 novel Les Frères Corses – The Corsican Brothers. When conjoined twins Jeffrey and Jason Burr were surgically separated soon after birth, Jeffrey was abducted by disciples of the Cult of Kobra and raised to be their Dark Messiah: a deadly warrior, scientist and strategist dedicated to bringing about the end of civilisation and initiating a cleansing “Age of Chaos”. The peculiar circumstances of their birth meant that Jeffrey and Jason maintained an uncanny psychic connection wherein one would experience the hurts and harms inflicted upon the other. Over the years this led Jason to become the ultimate weapon in a war waged by numerous DC heroes against his serpentine terrorist sibling.
The JSA battled the first Kobra many times (most notably in JSA: Darkness Falls and JSA: Savage Times) but were utterly unprepared for the sheer horrors in store when they swung into action against the inheritor of the Snake cult.
Eric S. Trautmann’s terse, tense thriller is informed by the actions of real-world terrorism of fundamentalist factions around the globe, and elevates Kobra to the first rank of villains. He’s cast as the deadly herald of the World’s End who plays a lethal game of cat-&-mouse with the Planet’s Smartest Man and some of the most experienced heroes of all time.
The Serpent Lord begins his campaign of terror by dispatching suicide bombers to destroy the Justice Society in their own home and thereby confronting logic and superpowers with pure faith and high-tech explosives. Caught off guard by foes actually happy to die if they can strike a blow against their master’s enemies, the JSA are further wrong-footed by seemingly random attacks against civilians and institutions, all orchestrated by field commander and fanatical bride of death Ariadne Persakis.
The sheer scale of the bloodletting and illogical nature of the attacks soon has our heroes fighting amongst themselves as they strive to find some rhyme or reason behind such senseless, murderous assaults… so why then does Persakis abruptly surrender herself to their custody?
This is a stunning piece of fights ‘n’ tights fiction: dark, dramatic and intensely compelling. Trautmann melds shiny superheroics, grim realpolitik and genuine cultural zeitgeists into a splendidly mature costumed drama, and the effective underplayed art of Don Kramer, briefly aided by Neil Edwards, is chillingly effective at capturing the tone as well as the events.
If you think you’ve grown beyond gaudy mystery men and “goodies” against “baddies” this graphic novel is more than likely to make you think again.
