Writer: Peter MIlligan
Artist: C.P. Smith
Publisher: Wildstorm/DC
Price: $2.99
The Programme is a new 12 issue series from Wildstorm written by Peter Milligan, and illustrated by C. P. Smith. It tells the story of a cold war Russian Super-Soldier and his American counter part as they are re-awakened to the modern day world. Wildstorm has been seriously ailing lately, with the near implosion of its Wildstorm Universe Re-Launch and a lack of any other new launches, this series needs to be good.
Peter Milligan is a real hit and miss writer for me. I loved his Human Target series, his X-Statix run was patchy and his recent X-Men run was dire. Off the back of this first issue it’s very hard to tell how he’s doing here. The dialogue is actually pretty sharp, it flows well and it seems real; there is a particularly good exchange between the US president and one of his aides. The plotting and the flow is just a bit off really. This issue cuts all over the place, both in time and geography, without any narration text to note when or where the story has moved too. The result is that rather than functioning as a story-telling mechanism these jumps are simply jarring, distracting and sometimes a little confusing. It’s not a good sign when you have to read a first issue twice to really understand what is going on.
As far as confusion goes, the art does not help. Smith’s incredibly moody, shadowed, and often over-inked style worked brilliantly on the single high action Wolverine issue he pencilled, which is the only place I’ve seen it before. Here, in an issue that is predominantly exposition and scene setting, it just didn’t work that well. When you’re trying to get to grips with a set of new characters and settings what you want is to see them. Here they are plunged into shadow 70% of the time. Don’t get me wrong, there is some excellent use of colour and shadow here, particularly in one tropical island scene, and while Smith is a very accomplished at this kind of thing it just seemed over done here. Too much clarity was surrendered in favour of style.
This first issue of The Programme has left me with mixed feelings. There is a lot here I like. The setup is actually pretty interesting once you read it twice to get past the scene jumps, and while the art isn’t perfect it is extremely dramatic and sets the mood of the piece perfectly. I can’t help feeling there is loads of potential here, enough to come back for a couple more issues, but for this first issue at least that potential just wasn’t realised.
Having recently finished a PhD in Immunology Ross is currently working for a UK biotech company. He lives in Cambridge where he reads comics, spends too much money on music and attempts to learn Portuguese. He owns at least 7 lightsabers, yet still manages to have a very attractive girlfriend who he misses very much, thus proving anything really is possible.