By T.W. Worn — I just finished The Recount and it has put me in an unusual mood. A combination of fear and relief. There is something off about the comic's tone that causes me to question what is the motive and intent of the writer. What at first seems like a simple story about an FBI Agent protecting the Vice President after the corrupt President is assassinated after resigning by a radical terrorist cell that swears to continue kill said Vice President, the politicians and elites that backed them, as well as each and every person that voted for them, may actually be more complicated than it seems.

You see, what I first dismissed as an edgy, "what if" story from a more leftist angle may in fact be a tongue-in-cheek jab at attempting to be America's V For Vendetta. While I know for a fact I can spend the next four hours of your life connecting echos of Moore's exploration of radical ideologies, and hints at a deeper story about the victims of America's abuse, I would rather just give you a simple review, not the conspiratorial contractions of terror and relief that have been flooding my brain all fucking day.

The Recount is a new series by Jonathan Hedrick (Freakshow Princess, Capable) that follows the story of the summary listed above (Paragraph 1, sentence 4.) By the second page you are in over your head, scrambling with country as we try to figure how this happened. The President is dead, and there are seven million more people on the list. And then the issue is over. I mean, we do get to spend most of our time with the Vice President, we also get to meet the antagonist of the store: The Masses. A conspiracy cell hell bent on Making That Country Good Again ™.

So we learn their master plan, and then we are just left hanging there. With this uneasy stomach of the unknown, a country about to go to war, reflecting on the world around you. Some people might go, "This is just a What-If, 'both side bad,' bad faith take on American politics." To those people I say, maybe. Honestly, it could be. It's easy to make any piece of art purely for entertainment, only to have a Year 10 English teacher forcing you to analyze the subtext of a John Steinbeck novel as said teacher bad mouths Socialism completely unaware of the irony, because Steinbeck was a card carrying Socialist.

But what if Hedrick IS trying to say something? Think about it, why did they kill a president that was already resigning? Why go after both the elites AND the lower classes? The Masses mention the abuse of Americans in wars, but choose war as their solution? The President in the comic is most likely a surrogate for our current president, right? So the Masses are assumed to be left wing? If that is the case, then why does one of the characters that voted for the president resemble V, the notable anarchist from V For Vendetta? Is Hedrick dropping an Easter egg for us, or is he giving a respectable punk rock flip-of-the-bird to the Magical Mystery Moore? I don't know! All I know is the President is dead and The Masses are after his supporters!

I am thrown into a panic even more by Gabriel Elias Ibarra Nunez's (Juan Valiente, Graveland) art! The shapes and gestures of the characters become almost ethereal at times. There is a "cut clean with a jagged knife" architecture to everything, and it is only expanded upon with Sunil Ghagre's (Wunderwaffen) colors! It is not grimy or flashy, it is just honest. There is an almost objective view of what's happening. All of this is shown to us along with the lettering of Cristian Docolomansky (Jazz Legend and Zinnober) who gives us clean and tight dialog. The art gives us small details of, what we all assume to be, the leader of The Masses, and there is a good chance there is something physically wrong with him. I could be overthinking here, but his skin almost seems to be scared? I don't know, and I won't know until I finish the series, but who knows when that will be because Lazar abandoned me and canceled his credit cards before he left.

The team pulls off a one-two punch with the gravity of the situation, and that's why I think this might be more than a "Both Sides Bad" argument. I think it is an American take at a British question: DAT DE'H 'ORSESHOE DEORY DONE BE ROIGHT, DI'N'IT?"

Overall: The Recount #1 has the potential to be our generation's exploration of Authority and Extremism, but we will have to wait for future issues to find out. 8/10

REVIEW: The Recount #1

The Recount #1
Writer: Jonathon Hedrick
Artist: Gabriel Elias Ibarra Nune
Colorist: Sunil Ghagre
Letterer: Cristian Docolomansk
Publisher: Scout Comics
When the US President is assassinated by one of his own security detail, a female Secret Service agent named Bree Barto must protect the Vice President at all costs from a mass conspiracy by a group calling themselves 'The Masses'. With nowhere to turn and no one to trust, these two women with completely opposing political views and beliefs must work together to preserve what’s left of American democracy.
Release Date: November 18, 2020
Buy It Here: The Recount #1