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Executive Assistant: Lotus #1
Publisher: Aspen
Writer: Vince Hernandez
Artist: Oliver Nome
Cover: Oliver Nome & Peter Steigerwald

The woman once known as Rani had a very strict code she conducted her business by. When it came to this there was no middle ground or grey area. The tough part about that is things don’t always go according to plan, and a mistake is made while she was attempting to go after a target. It’s this mistake that leads her on the path to becoming an Executive Assistant.

The first thing you’ll notice about Executive Assistant: Lotus is that Hernandez doesn’t stick with the exact same formula as EA: Iris and the other titles. Though Rani’s life ran parallel to what an Executive Assistant does, she was not brought up as a child in one of the many facilities. She’s basically a legacy assassin, as Hernandez points out that this has been going on in her family for hundreds of years. It’s also interesting to see that she was brought into the role of Executive Assistant as an already proficient assassin. Hernandez also lets a bit of her humanity come through in the story, giving her a bit more depth than say Orchid or Acteia.

Oliver Nome and Emilio Lopez make this one fantastic looking book! There, I got that out of the way. From the opening scene where Lotus kills the two guards checking out her cleavage window, to her sparring with her pet Bengal tiger, it just gets better and better. Nome also keeps the action flowing well from panel to panel, and you’re never lost during all of the chaos and explosions. It’s also a big plus that her ethnicity shows in his depiction of her and she’s not just a Caucasian looking woman colored to look Indian. That’s a pet peeve of mine and I’m glad to see Nome and Lopez didn’t take that route.

Once we get past all of the introductory issues, I’m hoping that we’ll find out what everyone’s role in the Hit List Agenda will be. For right now it just seems as if the event is all about introducing the new assassins, and we’re not sure what the endgame is going to be. Other than that, the creative teams on each book are delivering some quality work, and Executive Assistant: Lotus is another gem in the collection.

Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack