Review: ‘The Resistance’ Rises In The Latest Issue From AWA Upshots

The Resistance #5 sees the action, espionage and undercover super heroics go global as we take a trip, firstly to North Korea and then to Belarus, in the penultimate issue of this current world-building series from J Michael Straczynski and Mike Deodato Jr. and the beginnings of the fight back by this with powers to protect the less fortunate.
From the real-world pandemic The Resistance reflected – more by coincidence than design – to the real-world politics it also reflects, this series has been a real study in the effects such folks could have on a world not too dissimilar to our own. The collective resistance begins to rise in earnest this issue and work as a more gritty and grounded version of DC Comics’ Global Guardians, or an even more extreme X-Men with their very own Professor X, albeit this particular teacher/student relationship is a twisted reflection of Charles’s own dynamics with his X-Men and X-Women. But, it certainly makes for a very different kind of team dynamic moving forward, that’s for sure.

Deodato Jr.’s realism and attention to detail only reinforces this as a more realistic take on the capes and cowl crowd. There are no technicolored goons with exotic villainous names here, but rather leaders of the world with fascistic tendencies and human traffickers only too happy to make a fast buck on enslaving people. This is a comic that leans more towards V for Vendetta than it does Superman in its chilling all-too-real depiction of a world only a few steps out of line with our own. Only, we don’t have super powered individuals to save the day.
The Resistance continues to impress and it will be interesting to see what’s next in this book’s evolution. Even with one more issue left, I cannot help but feel we are only scratching the surface of this fascinating, relatable world. 
The Resistance #5 is out now from AWA Upshots
Rating: 9/10