Part of me wants to love this issue but another part of me wants to shake my head. The zero (or first) issue of this series really got me excited. James Tynion IV is quickly becoming one of the best, new writers of the year with his work on Batman. With Talon he’s got a fresh character to work with and show his chops. Unfortunately I have to say there are some bumps in what is a solid issue overall.

With all new writers, Tynion IV seems to hit the exposition well with his first issue. Not so much in Calvin Rose’s origins (we got that in the zero issue) but with Tynion setting up what the premise of the series is going to be. You take the good with the bad in this situation. On one hand, he’s getting the logistics of the series out of the way now so we can get right into the meat of the series. Unfortunately it makes some pages of this issue a slog to read at times with endless word balloons and narration boxes. This isn’t a bad issue in terms of the writing because what’s here is interesting. It feels like I’m reading the script of a new TV series in that we get some action while knowing what’s going on in this part of the Bat-verse. But if Tynion could have dialed back a bit with the exposition then this would have read a bit better.

Like I said in my review last month, Guillem March is going to be the one who makes or breaks this series for me. He isn’t like Greg Land where it’s nothing but bullshit every page you look at. You can see his talent on the page but still there are somethings not quite right. Some of the panel layouts in here are a bit wonky and there was one moment that was particularly jarring (when Calvin threatens Sebastian with a knife). For the most part thought I liked a lot of what was offered here. He handles the action quite nicely and considering the bad guys are going to be Talons he can go all out on the violence. Plus he has this Anime influence to his pencils, especially with the character designs, which makes his pages stand out from the rest. That and Tomeu Morey has been a great colorist for March over the years and this is no different here. If anything, March’s pencils look bright and vibrant thanks to Morey’s work.

This issue unfortunately falls into the trap of what many ‘first’ issues suffer from. There is A LOT of exposition crammed into these pages and at times it can be a chore to read. But Tynion does offer a lot of compelling things for the future with this series so at least we know he’s got all of that info out of the way for next month. Finally, March’s pencils still worry me a bit and we did see some muddy layout designs in here. But I still have confidence that this series has the potential to be one of the best new series for DC just on the zero issue alone. With the origin and exposition out of the way; let’s see what these two guys can do!