(No Spoilers)

Welcome ‘back’ to Tranquility! That quirky little town in the Wildstorm
Universe that Gail Simone introduced us to back in 2006. In case you
don’t know, the original Welcome to Tranquility ran for 12 issues. As
part of the Worldstorm event, it retroactively added this cast of
elderly superheroes to the Wildstorm Universe. For example, it added a
history between Majestic, The High, and Tranquility resident Maximum Man
as a duo fighting crime in the early 20th century called The Big Three.
It was an idea that did not exist before the series. After the series,
there was a Welcome to Tranquility: Armageddon one-shot that appeared as
part of the Wildstorm: Armageddon crossover. Since then, we haven’t
seen the town other than a few mentions of it over in Gen 13.

First thing you need to know is this happens before World’s End so it
has no bearing on that story. The second thing I’m sure you want to know
is, “Can I read this without reading the first series?”. Well, kind of.
This is truly a sequel to the original series. It follows on the heels
of the original arc which centered around the story of Mayor Alex Fury.
But there is at least one reference to the second arc of the original
series. Simone does a good job of getting us up to speed on the events
of previous series. So, I can honestly say you won’t be lost reading
this, but you will have the feeling that there was a whole other story
that happened that you missed out on. Thankfully, the original series is
collected in trade and it’s not a big deal to catch up with it.

The original series had Neil Googe doing the art. This time he’s only
providing the covers. We have Horacio Domingues on art. I’ve seen his
work elsewhere and I have to say it’s just ok. It’s similar enough to
Googe’s that if you were reading, it wouldn’t be too jarring of a visual
change, but I don’t think Domingues puts as much detail in his art like
Googe does. An example of this is a scene of a car exploding that in my
opinion looked really weak. Don’t get me wrong, his art is not terrible
at all. It fits the series perfectly. I just thought it could have been
stronger.

One of the things that I loved about the original that’s still intact
here is Simone’s humor. We start off with a couple of great gags at the
beginning including a very clever one that gives us a summary about what
happened in Tranquility’s first arc. Plus all the dialogue is spot on.
Every character’s personality shows through in not just what they say
but also how they say it. These are all Simone’s creations so I’m glad
she’s the one writing this book.

This was a good first issue that sets up a great new mystery for the
citizens of Tranquility. We got to see the majority of the residents
here but there’s still a few more I hope to see by the end of the
mini-series. I’m glad Simone decided to come back to this sandbox and
play.