The first issue of a new miniseries from Image Comics moves the focus to Detroit, with a more mature hero.
Stealth 1
Written by Mike Costa
Art by Nate Bellegarde and Tamra Bonvillain
With a slow week for my comic book pull list, I decided to try the first issue of this new 6-issue Image Comics miniseries about a newspaper reporter in Detroit who uncovers the story of a lifetime. His father, getting older and starting to suffer from the effects of Alzheimer’s, is the superhero known as Stealth.
Unfortunately, the suit that gives him his powers can’t save him from the debilitating disease eating away at his brain. The Alzheimer’s (or maybe dementia) sends Stealth out and puts him in a situation where he not only attacks a group of police officers, but later he attacks his own son.
Anyone who has watched the mind of a loved one deteriorate the way reporter Tony Barber’s has been can probably appreciate the gravity of what Stealth is going through and how tough it is for his son to experience. It’s a heart-wrenching situation to live through, and it’s made all the more shocking when Tony comes home from work looking for his dad, only to find him crashed through an upstairs window in an alien supersuit.
There are a lot of great scenes throughout the opening chapter of the Stealth miniseries, but my favorite is tied to Tony’s job as a reporter. The first part of the issue shows Tony struggling to write a piece about the slow decline of the once-great city of Detroit. When we eventually discover that what he’s supposed to be writing about is a craft show, Tony rails against having to write stories like this, as it’s a waste of his journalistic skills.
His editor has what is probably the most realistic response I’ve ever seen in a comic book that takes place in a newsroom.
As an editor, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate seeing this response. It is the most true-to-life representation of a newsroom battle between an editor and reporter I’ve ever seen. Of course, I always root for the editor. Hopefully we see more of her. She has her head on straight.