Red One book 2: Undercover by Xavier Dorison and Terry Dodson (graphic novel review).
‘Red One: Book 2: Undercover’ continues writer Xavier Dorison and artist Terry Dodson’s story of Vera Yelnikov, a Russian in the USA posing as super-heroine Red One, hunting down and murdering the Carpenter. Actually, as this book opens, reprinting Red One #3–4, they are in a major battle where he apparently dies. There is no need to spoiler and say he survives and, later, a body is found to hide that fact.
Meanwhile, Vera, as Albana Jane, is trying to help her boss, porn director Lew Gardner, get his latest production, ‘The Farm’, off the ground—well, on a real farm in a real location—after their studio had been burned down. Gardner wants to put the film out before priest Jacky Core creates a storm running for the White House and is likely to win. He sees that his film will undercut her plans. What neither of them knows is that Core controls the Carpenter with her own plans.
Vera’s role as a house servant isn’t particularly good. She washes clothes in the wrong setting, and they shrink as they do. Gardner won’t sack her yet, simply because of her recruitment drive for extras for his film. She is also an irritant for her control officer in the USA, and the plot is moving along with the fatal words, ‘to be continued’. There is no book 3!
Another thorough look on the Internet, and not a sign of one. On the www.redonecomic.com website, it notes a French comic short story, and that’s it. Even googling what happened next doesn’t reveal anything. It’s as if the KGB has put in a viral worm to remove all traces of the comic book on the Internet.
All right, it’s an unusual book putting a Russian out to save America, but it’s set in 1977, so it’s hardly contemporary, but it’s a good story and deserves to be finished rather than left up in the air. There was a two-year gap between the two graphic novels and nine years of nothing. Not being contemporary means there wouldn’t be that much of a gap going back to it. I doubt if it would take more than two comic book issues to complete and make a third graphic novel. It has everything going for it. Good art. Good writing. An interesting premise that, heaven forbid, was original.
I think you can spot it. I’m a little annoyed, more so as it would also make a good film or TV series.
GF Willmetts
March 2024
(pub: Image Comics, 2017. 64 page graphic novel large hardback. Price: varies and rare. ISBN: 978-1-63215-935-9)
check out websites: https://imagecomics.com/ and www.redonecomic.com
