Old guard Vol 1 by Greg Rucka

Vol 1: Opening Fire, illustrated by Leandro Fernández, colored by Daniela Miwa, lettered by Jodi Wynne

Andy and her team of super soldiers are nearly immortal. Some have been alive for centuries, others, millennia. They don’t know why they haven’t died yet, despite repeated attempts to kill them, most of the time in fairly violent way.  They often discover their immortality by coming back to life after being killed on the battlefield. When they start dreaming about a new girl, they have to find her or they’ll just keep dreaming about her.  Andy recruits Nile Freeman, a U.S. Marine, after she returns to life from having her throat slit. After their latest job goes south and their secret gets exposed, they must go on the run and figure out how to put things back to normal. The team begins to fracture, and it’s team leader Andy’s job to figure it all out and keep the team together.

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This story has a really enjoyable premise that explores what might happen to people if they live forever. While we haven't fully explored how this team becomes soldiers for hire, the fact that they all have a background in their era's military may explain why they continue to fight, and it helps pay the bills as well. Each character’s background is explored on a surface level, except we do get a bit more about Booker as he explains to Freeman why it’s not a good idea to stick around your family after you’ve found out you’re semi-immortal.

Fernández' art is a little comical in certain moments.  Some characters have overly emphasized facial features, like noses that take up more than half the length of their face.  But, it is overall fairly clean and has easy to follow action sequences.  The coloring by Miwa is fairly light with lots of pastels.  In each individual panel, Miwa has a singular color palette she builds on, and entire pages can have multiple palettes that don't always compliment each other.

This is definitely an adult title. There are multiple sex scenes, full frontal male nudity, and lots of realistic violence.

Sara’s Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Adult

Publisher: Image Comics
Publication Date: September 5, 2017
ISBN: 9781534302402 (Paperback)

Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Adult, Comicbooks, War, Action Adventure, Image Comics