Boy did this come out of left field! I mean I love Warren Ellis, I loved Raulo Caceres work on ‘Crecy’; but I had no intention of picking this up. Why? I don’t know. But I was at my LCS and I saw this brilliant cover. It wasn’t the one showcased on the website; it showed ‘Captain Swing about to knock out a police officer on a flying boat…..and I was like…..’Yeah I wanna get this’.

I’m so glad I did because this was a pretty amazing first issue by Warren Ellis. We have two sides of Ellis if you think about it. We get the ‘crazy, mental patient’ writer (Nextwave/Transmetropolitan) and we get more of the ‘serious but still crazy writer’ (Crecy/Red). For Captain Swing….I’m not really sure what we got here. Most of this is played as serious as it can be, but it is so wild and imaginative. It’s kinda steampunk, but not really, if that makes any sense. Basically it is an alternative history about a pirate, in London 1830, that uses electricity to terrorize people. At least that’s what we know so far in this issue. All we know is that there is this Captain Swing flying around, the police know about him, but no one else.

It’s funny how Ellis set this issue up because; Swing’s narration takes a whole page of text; which I like because it sets up this universe quite easily. While the stuff involving the cops are all done in traditional comic form. I don’t know if Ellis is going to continue this in the future issues, but it definitely made it easier to get into this world he has created.

As stated earlier, I love Caceres work from ‘Crecy’. It was only in black & white, with inks; but what I saw was pretty gorgeous. Here, I see his work colored for the first time, and I think his work stands out even more because of it. Sometimes faces are a bit ‘off’ to be honest; but the majority of this issue looks damn impressive. Buildings and set peices are ridiculously well detailed; and he lays his panels out quite nicely. Anything involving Swing and his electricity ‘powers’ are a sight to behold though. His ship, his gun, and the goggles he wear are just so beautiful. I probably looked at these pages longer then I normally would in a comic.

So I picked this up as a lark, and it became my pick of the week. It brings in Ellis’s madness, but he puts a serious tone in an otherwise ridiculous concept. But it’s the art that will really draw you in. I don’t know if Caceres style would work in superhero comics, but he should be getting more offers after this one issue. I’m hooked for the rest of this mini. Let the madness begin!