review by Aaron Cooper

You know you are in for some fun when any title deliberately calls itself something like The Losers. Unfortunately, I was hoping to have a little more fun.

The Losers – Ante Up is about a team of former CIA black ops that uncovered some nastiness going on in their division and were set up to die as a result. They escape the death sentence and now seek to take down anybody and everybody associated with the plot to take them out. May sound simple, but like anything dealing with secrets within the government, there is lots of double crossing and red herrings floating about to keep you guessing.

Unfortunately, the premise has already been done. Certain shadowy elements of the CIA are dealing and stealing drug money and laundering through big business? ‘Say it isn’t so’ says this writer sarcastically. Didn’t I see this in a Tom Clancy novel about 10 years ago? Do I not already live in a world where conspiracy theory is the norm and not the exception? Granted, you don’t see this material presented in such a format (the comic book or graphic novel) too often, but it isn’t the trend setting book I expected it to be.

Most of this lies in the fault of writer Andy Diggle. He writes the government conspiracy and weaponry mumbo-jumbo superbly, but it is just not new and his humor tends to lean towards the “how many cuss words can I make a character cram into one thought” motif, so many of the characters come across as one-dimensional as a result. On a side note, I feel this is a big problem in the Marvel MAX line also. Diggle does write some great action though, and so even if the premise comes off as stale, the execution of the material and the scenarios used to resolve the conflict are brilliant! There are entire sequences that leave the reader jumping to the next page to see what happens.

The art by Jock help flesh out the otherwise average story. I could swear that Jock is or somehow related to Howard Chaykin. His approach to art includes lots of harsh faces, square jaws, and finely detailed vehicles and weapons mixed with movie quality angles and scenes. It complements the material perfectly and is a nice change from the manga inspired, computer generated, pretty boy art permeating many recent titles.

One final thing that The Losers – Ante Up has going for it is an awesome price. At $9.99 for a six-issue trade paperback, this book gives a lot to the reader for a price that can’t be beat. Heck, I read it twice in one week for that price. Hopefully, the story will progress and come into its own. I do look forward to subsequent volumes, and the series only consists of five reasonable priced trade paperbacks so I may just investigate the entire run and see how it all turned out.