After some much needed time searching for answers on their own, each member of the Crisis Command realized that they can’t save the world alone. Unable to trust their former leader, Frontier, Originator, Sawbones, Seer and Prizefighter confront the issues plaguing them most and come to a conclusion no one could have predicted. Minor spoilers for the sixth issue of Commanders in Crisis ahead!
The fifth issue saw each member of the team attempting to save the world in their own way, only to slowly realize how difficult it would be to help people without empathy. If the people of Earth don’t care, why should they? This is exactly the question Sawbones and Prizefighter discuss throughout this issue, with them attempting to find a new reason to fight. They are trying to search for the possibility that people could learn empathy, and whether it could be an option.
Meanwhile, Seer attempts to fight back against the American Individuality Act, which would see each of the states become separate countries, effectively disbanding the United States. Because of the public lack of knowledge of Seer’s past, they push back, as many of them hope that the act passes since they have no desire to care for their larger country and the rest of the people within it.
This issue is probably the least action-heavy of the series so far, choosing to focus on the members of the Crisis Command slowly coming back together over their mutual cause. This is demonstrated most in the panels with Sawbones and Prizefighter discussing the state of the world and their place within it. The rest of the team is grappling with similar issues as well, with Frontier attempting to find other heroes that share her desire to save the world, despite the empathy being dead.
Steve Orlando has us further relate to these characters due to our own empathy and understanding what the world would be like without it. The last issue presented to us what a world without empathy looks like and how difficult it would be to save it without the people of the world knowing what they were being saved from. To make matters worse, the Extinction Society wants the world to end, as it makes Earth’s greatest treasures even more valuable. The Extinction Society is the result of the selfishness this world has wrought.
The art throughout this issue may not be very dynamic in design, but the way Davide Tinto uses the comic-panel structure to craft this story feels cinematic, particularly in the pages showcasing Sawbones and Seer’s times as President of the United States. They know all too well what it is like to keep secrets from the American populace and to act on them without public knowledge. Without words on the page, the way their faces are drawn is to show their displeasure for their past actions. Through each page you can see their empathy grow despite the actions of the world around them. The colorists’ (Francesca Carotenuto and Francesca Vivaldi) more flushed color palette throughout these scenes create a feeling of despair and remorse, similar to that of the characters.
The sixth issue of Commanders in Crisis feels like a slow build up to a natural conclusion that I would have never seen coming if it was not for the structure of this issue. This issue makes those last few pages feel inevitable despite the sense of doom created by issues four and five. At this point, I am incredibly invested in the story Orlando and Tinto are telling and I am interested to see the world’s reaction to the information presented at the end of this issue.
Rating: 8.5/10
The Candid Clark 