I have taken flack before for writing a review when I’ve admitted I’ve put a book down part way through.  Fine.  If you’re offended by that idea, you can stop reading this.  Sometimes I’ll put a book down because I don’t like the story or the art.  And, sometimes, because a book just isn’t speaking to me.  Which is the case with Codebreakers.

I’m not saying it’s bad.  From a technical standpoint, I quite liked the writing, and the art was very good.  I put it down because it’s about a subject that I’m not really interested in.  It’s a spy book, but, at least in the first issue, it’s a “talking about how to spy” book.  It’s not a subject I find entertaining.  I only picked the book up because Boom! Studios has surprised me on several occasions.  I had no idea I’d enjoy the first three issues of Dingo as much as I did, so I gave this a shot, and it missed for me.  But, again, this isn’t an “It sucked.” miss, it’s a “This wasn’t for me.” miss.

If you enjoy that scene in the cop show where the scientists sit around and try to piece together a crime, you might enjoy this.  If you’re a big fan of the moment in the spy flick where the nerdy assistant explains how the heist went down, played over the montage of the robbery, this might be for you.

If this were part three or four of a crime series that I was already invested in, this issue very well could have been for me.  Alas, as a first issue, it didn’t make me want to read more.  That’s why I put it down.  You can take my rating of the writing as representing the first half of the book.  Again, it was technically written very well.  I went and flipped through the rest of the issue, and, given the quality of the panels I pored over, and the overall look and layout of the pages I didn’t scrutinize, I’d say the art is 5 stars the whole way through.