More Talk Than Action: ‘Redcoat’ #18 Review

This is a series I have come to see as more and more problematic for any number of reasons I have more than highlighted in my time reviewing this comic book. Initially, I had thought this to be an interesting and original recount of America’s past, but in time that in itself became a problem. A comic book celebrating America’s past but only from the perspective of the European colonisers with Year Zero effectively being set as 1776, the year of America’s independence from British rule. And as the issue came out, I had hoped for the voices of the outcast and colonised to be heard. Where were the stories from the Native Americans, or the enslaved people of Africa? In their place the usual myth making that America – and in particular Hollywood – have pushed to the fore to perpetuate the idea that America is a wild frontier and any man – white man – who can tame it is cast as a hero. It’s a dangerous yet insidious cornerstone of the American psyche, with this ideology currently causing no end of problems in modern America. You need to look no further than your President’s social media post and AI slop to see he embodies this bullshit and projects it out to an unbelieving world.

This issue is a good example of everything I dislike about this series. A storyline that requires an understanding of American History I wasn’t taught in school, as well as panel after panel of characters talking. The whole endeavour is beginning to weigh on me and is no longer entertaining to read, even if the art is this book’s only saving grace at this point. I am clearly not it’s target audience, but the who outside of America is? And while it isn’t, Redcoat does read like a comic any Trump supporter who can read would probably enjoy a lot more than me.

And so, I relinquish the reviewing of this series. The perspective of the series, seen through our would-be hero Simon Pure’s eyes, is not the only problem I’ve had. More and more – like in this latest issue — there’s more talking heads than there is action. It’s clear that both the creators, writer Geoff Johns and artist Bryan Hitch, have high hopes for this becoming a TV series. It definitely reads like one. But, for this UK based reviewer, I’ve simply had enough of this inaction, often dull narrative and white American history. This is a comic that aims firmly for a predominantly American readership. And you’re welcome to it.

Redcoat #18 is out now from Ghost Machine/Image Comics.