Review by Ian Keogh

The United States want to extract someone from Russia, and their subject has asked that Randall Crane be part of the team. Once a diplomat, he’s now lecturing in Russian studies, and Elena was once his lover.

Cullen Bunn delivers the first chapter set-up of introduction, explanation and complication efficiently, although not entirely so, as the feeling is the complication is a matter that would have been discussed beforehand. Still, with Mike Deodato Jr. supplying people and places in his best photorealism a minor glitch squeezes through.

This wouldn’t be a proper action thriller, though, if the complication didn’t become a snafu, and pretty soon Crane’s a fugitive in Russia. It turns out his diplomatic status from back in the day was just a cover, and it may have been 25 years previously, but he’s still fit and resourceful. It’s like transferring Indiana Jones to present day Russia, where old enemies still want to settle scores, and Bunn applies much the same tongue in cheek tone to Red Zone. The stakes keep being raised, an exasperated Crane digs his way out and yet more of his past crawls out of the woodwork.

There’s no hint of any satire in Deodato’s artwork, just page after page of professional naturalism, stunning detail and photorealistic people. The storytelling is immaculate, and Lee Loughridge adds to the atmosphere by keeping the colours dark with only the occasional light source breaking through.

Red Zone slightly runs out of steam at the end when Bunn’s otherwise admirable imagination doesn’t furnish him with anything other than an ordinary finish. It’s the type of hokey ending you’d see on a cinema screen after a film’s been tested to death. Still, getting there is fun, and the art shines.