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A review by globosdepensamiento
Zero Volume 1: An Emergency by Aleš Kot
5.0
2018: A soldier, who belongs neither to the Palestinian or the Israeli side, infiltrates the Gaza Strip with a classified mission.
2000: A child is educated and molded to kill under the motto "Existence is a perpetual state of war.”
2019, January: A James Bond lookalike is having a drink in Shanghai at an event organized by and for high caliber terrorists.
2019, October: In Rio de Janeiro a young man announces to an older one: “I’m here to kill you.”
2038: An old man sitting in front of a cliff in Dover contemplates the horizon as a child points a gun to his head.
All of them are Edward Zero, special operative of The Agency.
Welcome to ZERO, by Ales Kot.
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Two years ago no one knew who Ales Kot was. A year ago Ales Kot did not know who Ales Kot was. Today we are quite a few who know who Ales Kot is. Within a year (maybe less), the whole comic fandom will know who is Ales Kot.
Of Czech origin, but settled in the United States, in July 2012 Kot published his first “big” comic project, Wild Children (Image Comics), a psychotropic fable about the creative, emotional, sexual and destructive explosion that involves reaching adolescence, breaking the child’s world but still refusing to accept the rules and responsibilities of the adult world. Critics soon presented Kot as the second coming of Grant Morrison, as they tend to do every time drugs and relevance pretenses are mixed when presenting a story in comic form.
Later that year, Kot’s career kept gaining momentum with the publication of his second Image book, Change, and then the assignments started coming. DC chose this “raw talent” to take Suicide Squad over from Adam Glass and to write a short story in his Halloween tale collection, The Witching Hour. Quite a discovery this Kot guy… who resigned or was fired after 4 numbers on the Suicide Squad over “creative differences” that were never clarified.
After leaving DC, Kot announced the upcoming release of his new Image series, Zero, while Marvel recruited him to finish Nick Spencer's Secret Avengers run and then relaunch it, with the guy flying solo, and adding a yet-to-be-released Iron Patriot miniseries to the mix. All this happened in 2013 … what will not happen in 2014?
Moving on, Zero is the creature of Ales Kot, collecting a handful of its creator’s concerns and interests. Despite his youth, Kot is very familiar with comics and what they can offer. That is why, in order to give life to Edward Zero, he decided to conduct an experiment that would allow him to fully exploit the characteristics of the medium: each issue would be drawn by a different artist, always one suitable to the tone of the story and always appealing to the strengths of each artist.
The glue that visually holds everything together is, without a doubt, Jordie Bellaire's expertise as a colorist, but not negligible is the work of each of the artists: Michael Walsh's dingy stroke is most appropriate to narrate a short war story set in the Middle East; the stylized cartoon versatility of Tradd Moore fills Edward's childhood with the charm of his first (and only) love (?), Mina Thorpe, and the rawness of the consequences of his first mission; Mateus Santolouco exploits his expressiveness in a tragic spy techno-thriller; with Morgan Jeske we return to a dirtiness in the outlines, this time adrenalinic, with raw fights splashing us and persecutions infecting us with their power; and finally, Will Tempest returns us to the calm before the storm with a more “intimate” issue, crisscrossing conversations with silent scenes that speak louder than the dialogues.
Changes in tone, leaps in time and space, questionable temporal linearity… Each issue of this series is a piece of the broken puzzle conforming the story and character of Edward Zero, a James Bond of sorts that was bred to be the perfect killing machine to service an organization that operates above laws, politics and borders. As we learn more about Edward's origins, the methods and interests of The Agency are simultaneously revealed in small pills. The enigmatic and interesting extras, included at the end of every issue, also contribute to broaden this universe.
Influenced by the back material that >Alan Moore created for the story of Watchmen (from ornithology guides to excerpts of a certain autobiography), Ales Kot shares mission dossiers, classified documents and excerpts from interviews concerning the freshly told story, with great relevance for the disclosure of certain plot details. A treat that puts the finishing touch to a story that book designer Tom Muller, in collaboration with the cover artists and Kot himself, develops to enhance the visual narrative of the book itself, not inherent in its interior, but in all its form.
In short, Zero represents the past, with the frame of a classic spy story, powers in the shadows and larger than life hidden plans; the present, with issues and concerns that, although set in a near future, they are felt very near to us; and the future, the first great masterpiece of Ales Kot, when completed, I promise
[Originally published in Revering Comic Books]