Shadow Service #1 is out August 19, 2020. — **Shadow Service #1** is out August 19, 2020.

By Zack Quaintance — One of the (many) things I love about rising indie publisher Vault Comics is that their books often defy simple elevator pitches or loglines. Sure, you could call Wasted Space, for example, Star Wars mixed with philosophical contemplation…but that ignores the theological elements, the deep sense of humor, and the many other layers of plot. And almost every Vault book is like that, including this week’s stellar new debut, Shadow Service #1.

The simple pitch for Shadow Service is right there in the solicit text, “Spy craft meets black magic in the shadowy world of MI666.” And anyone who comes to the book looking for that will certainly enjoy what they find here. But Shadow Service is a much more layered comic than spycraft meets witchcraft…for double the craft. Writer Cavan Scott does an excellent job with his script of making this a characterization-first comic, right from the first page and an opening with really well-done first-person narration (my preferred narration for opening most stories with noir touches). That narration continues through the comic, doing a great job of naturally fleshing out our protagonist without ever feeling overly proscriptive or dense.

From there, the book goes on to explore issues around being born different, as well as doing what’s right both in a larger sense as well as for one’s self. Those are really the dual themes that give this opening chapter such a strong sense of relatability, because who among us doesn’t identify with both of those ideas?

The other major strength of this comic is the artwork of Corin Howell, who is colored excellently here by Triona Farrell. Howell has been on quite the streak of drawing excellent supernatural stories for sometime now. Just off the top of my head, I’ve really enjoyed Howell’s work in the Berger Books title Girl in the Bay, as well as more recently in the AfterShock Comics offering, Dark Red. The range of visuals in this comic demand an artist with the versatility to deliver shadowy noir contemplation as well as gruesome reveals, scenes in which flesh is being stretched off corpses by hooks hung from the ceiling, for example. Howell’s linework is assured and consistent as the book nails these big moments, with Farrell’s colors accentuating it all perfectly, moving from broody to grotesque as the story requires. There’s also quite a bit of action cartooning required by this book, and I think it’s a major challenge to move so adeptly from scary reveals to fight scenes, one handled perfectly here.

In summation, I found Shadow Service #1 to be a perfectly-executed first issue for a new series — bouncing from organic and personal character introduction, to the plot’s inciting incidents, to the marvelous cliffhanger that ends this first story. I noted this in our Top Comics to Buy for August 19, 2020…but that cliffhanger was so well done that I’m committing to reading this one for the length of the series, and I highly recommend you do the same.

Overall: A near-perfect first issue, from the high quality of the artwork to the layers of the script. Shadow Service #1 also has one of the best first issue cliffhangers I’ve seen in some time, alternately horrifying and intriguing…just like the rest of the book. 9.8/10

Shadow Service #1 - REVIEW

Shadow Service #1
Writer: Cavan Scott
Artist: Corin Howell
Colorist: Triona Farrell
Letterer: AndWorld Designs
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99Worried your partner is cheating? Need a missing person found? Gina Meyers is the Private Investigator for you. Sure, she’s a witch who worries that her powers make her more of a monster than the crooks she’s trying to catch, but it’s not like London’s criminal underworld is literally going to hell… is it? Spy craft meets black magic in the shadowy world of MI666.
Release Date: August 19, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Shadow Service #1