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Publisher: Top Cow
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Kenneth Rocafort
Cover: Kenneth Rocafort

“Decoys pt 1”: Now, some of you may remember a while back that Velocity won Top Cow’s first Pilot Season contest, and fans have been chompin’ at the bit to see their favorite cyborg speedster in action ever since. And being a longtime Cyberforce fan myself, along with really liking  the Velocity character, there was no way I was going to miss this issue.

The story itself is pretty straightforward, as Velocity is taken captive by a former Cyberdata scientist who had actually used himself as an experiment when the company was in the very beginning stages of cyborg technology. He’s ticked off that he was greatly disfigured in the process, forcing him to remake a hideous body to sustain himself, and was cast out of the company. While Velocity and her friends in Cyberforce have benefited greatly from what he began years ago, now he’s formulated a virus that will reduce the team to his former state and eventually kill them. The bad news is: the virus has been administered to her team already while she’s been captured, and she now has under an hour to save them. The good news is: the machine that the scientist has Velocity trapped in is calibrated to handle her old powerset, and he’s caught off guard when she breaks out due to her receiving the Ultra-Sapien Technoderm in the Cyberforce/Hunter Killer crossover earlier this year.

For anyone that is not too familiar with the title character here, Ron Marz politely introduces her while not over doing the expo. Most of it is done through her inner dialog, and we’re allowed to enjoy Rocafort’s artwork from page to page while the rest just comes naturally as the story progresses. Marz even has Velocity take a shot at a certain scarlet speedster, which was just  a great moment, because as much as I like that character, I agree with what was said in this issue. I like what Marz is doing with the character so far, and I’m hoping that when this mini-series is over, he’ll take a shot at her again.

I’ll admit that I was a little late when it came to Kenneth Rocafort’s skills, and the Cyberforce/Hunter Killer series opened my eyes to what this man can do to a page. That same level of great work continues right here in Velocity, where his unique panel layouts continue to compliment the artwork inside, outside, and behind them. Now, of course there were parts that stood out more than others in terms of quality, but even those that might  have lacked were still great visual pieces of work.

Now, for all of the praise I’ll give the issue, there is something that is bothering me, and hopefully it’s explained as the series goes on. It’s quite evident this book takes place after the Cyberforce/Hunter Killer series, but at the end of the last issue, Cyberforce member Heatwave was traded for the Hunter Killer member Ellis. So my questions would be: Why is Heatwave in this story when he left the team, and where is Ellis? So besides that query of mine, I had fun reading this issue and really can’t wait for the next three!

Infinite Speech
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