I love when a comic surprises me, and in 2020 the 6-issue superhero miniseries Stealth has really flown in under my radar (pardon the pun). If the following description seems vague, it’s because I’m trying to protect as much of the plotting as possible, to help preserve the surprise for you also. Launching off a concept by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, the series is presented as a superhero thriller, about a vigilante fighting Detroit’s organised crime gangs in a weaponised flight suit. But there’s more than meets the eye here, and the plot quickly opens up into an examination of the resultant strains on the hero’s family, and more broadly on developments in the struggling community.
It’s not all doom and gloom though; the series has one of the most deliciously arch villains of recent years in Dead Hand. Series writer Mike Costa gives many of the best lines to the sardonic gangster, and if Stealth ever did get developed into a TV series or movie, then Gary Oldman could make a good fist of bringing him to life (pardon the other pun). There are also sci-fi elements to the plotting, which carefully escalate up to a well-earned climax between all the main characters.
The artwork by Nate Bellegarde and Tamra Bonvillain is also a cut above the standard of your usual superhero series. Crisp linework, cinematic framing, and explosive action combined with a rich colour palette to heighten the drama. It’s a presentation which reminds me a great deal of Doug Mahnke’s breakout work on The Mask in the early ‘90s, which was a super-hero crime classic at the time. Overall this series is a really entertaining package, and I’d recommend you make sure that Stealth does not go unseen (last pun, I promise).
