First off, I love the Huntress and I was pleased to see she was getting a six part mini-series introducing her into DC’s New 52 universe. Writer Paul Levitz delivers a straight-forward, cut-and-dried first issue that finds Helena back in Italy to find the source of shipments of contraband that’s been filtering into Gotham City. Of course she finds out there’s more to it than just smuggling guns and the deeper she gets involved the more resolved the bad guys are to find her. There’s a little Batman-styled detective work mixed with some cool Huntress-styled action scenes and they both equal a pretty fun issue. My only beef is that it’s a fairly strait-laced issue than certainly doesn’t take many chances. There are no big surprises and the ending was uneventful and certainly didn’t offer any kind of cliffhanger. But I still found myself having fun, even if Levitz played it really, really safe.

But then you have Marcus To’s fantastic art. To draws some beautiful characters, mainly due to his realistic style and detailed approach. He puts together some wonderful action sequences through his large, over-sized panels and slick movie-styled choreography. I also really liked his layouts which use a lot of overlapping panels and a safe but fluid structure. This is a really clean and polished issue and the visuals make up for the story’s few shortcomings.

As I said, Paul Levitz plays it safe with this first book. It’s a solid issue but in many ways it feels like he’s writing specifically for the trade. Still it’s fun to see Helena has a place in this new Universe. Marcus To’s art is really strong and it’s certainly the best thing about this issue. There’s clearly more to come and even though the ending did little to sell the next issue, I’m on board just to see Huntress kick more butt. This should be one fun series.