"When Dreams are Born"
Writer/Artist: Mat Nastos
Publisher: Nifty Comics
Mat Nastos was kind enough to send me a copy of Cadre. You can tell from the cover that we're in super-hero territory, and that terrain can lead to many things. Although the Big Two believe such a place can only lead to bleak, dark woods and/or a massive earthquake. Mat Nastos in contrast has found a nice, stable little green field in which to picnic. Bunnies hop along, and butterflies float on a very soft wind.
Cadre had it been published during the pre-Crisis would have been considered a very solidly written and very well drawn book but nothing amazingly special. The pre-Crisis, no matter how I wish otherwise, no longer exists. What has replaced the pre-Crisis is to put it mildly considerably inferior and has made these solidly written, well drawn super-hero books that would not have been considered amazingly special yesterday, amazingly special today. Nastos simply has studied what worked before and writes it and draws it as if it were new.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Bullet Man and Bullet Girl, Silver Scarab and The Fury, the boyfriend/girlfriend type of super-team carved a long history in comic books. In many of the tales, the reader received the impression that one dragged the other along into battle, or usually one resonated more than the other. In Cadre Nastos follows the teamwork tradition, but he makes the characters feel so genuine that they balance each other out.
When you see Rapture's boyfriend, the phrase boy-toy comes immediately to mind, but as the story progresses, he displays the depth a serious super-hero should possess, and while he makes convincing arguments for his super-powered girlfriend to put on a costume, it's she who still makes her own decision on whether or not to join her boyfriend and his friends against a severe threat:
"You're right...I can't sit by and let innocents suffer...Just call me Rapture."
Well, that's the kind of sincere, super-hero dialogue that just cracks my toe-nails. Let the trumpets play.
Brothers Thunderbolt and Skyfire join Rapture and Basilisk. While rare, the brother type of super-hero couplet--Hawk and Dove for instance--did occur, and Nastos very deftly displays their relationship. Intriguing also is how all four of them early on in the tale exhibit self-interest like everyday people but unlike such folk put aside their own needs for the sake of others. This optimistic idea was very much a standard of super-hero philosophy that has become extinct in super-hero hackwork being published by DC. Does Superman stop the murder of innocents, or is he too busy trying to kill his former partner in the world's finest team Batman? Maybe he simply can't be bothered to stop floating over wreckage.
The Cadre's strong man is winningly novel, and just an aside of how he can without vision powers recognize Rapture as Rachel West because he knows Rachel West exemplifies the casual smartness in scripting. The “vigilante” of the group Lamprey talks our strong man White Dwarf into the plot. Lamprey is a nice, original name and a very good descriptor of the powers he possesses. The somewhat loose cannon of the group is when compared to other loose cannons quite tight, and it’s really only his unfamiliarity rather than his methods that make him stand outside the rest of the group. Again, it’s an example of craft as opposed to shock.
Nastos' threat in the plot comes in the form of another former staple of super-hero books. A big, honking something attacking people and creating mucho property damage instills the sense of danger. Nastos gives this thing a very impressive rationale that fits with the pseudohistory he creates for his world. The creature gains sympathy from the reader, but the potential for horrendous horror being done demands that it be stopped. The finale for the beast comes in the form of poetry eschewing saccharine taste and pretentiousness.
Now, you may balk against Cadre's price. It's a forty-eight page black and white book priced at $4.95. However, all but three pages are filled with artwork and story not ads. The story is done in one issue that leaves threads but no loose ends for an ongoing series, and that makes the price reasonable.
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