Trapped with no aid in sight, Faith is coming face to face with her very-first supervillain! LA’s own sky-soaring hero always wanted to be like the comic book characters that inspired her…but is she ready to deal with the consequences of being a bonafide superhero? And, as if a new arch-nemesis weren’t enough, a shadowy figure is closing in on Faith’s secret identity! How’s that for a cliffhanger?!

Full disclosure: I’m a Valiant fan, and enjoy almost everything the publisher has on the racks, but there’s something about Faith that just clicks with me. This will be a far from impartial review, but maybe by the time you’ve read it you’ll want to read Faith as well.

That Faith is a plus sized woman is going to be something that you notice right away, but it’s far from the most notable thing about the character or the comic. Faith is a wonderful character to read about; she’s a life long comic book fan who plays DnD, and reminds me more of myself than any character I’ve read about before.

Faith #1 ended on an almost cliffhanger that’s resolved in a really satisfying way, with Jody Houser seeming to take several light jabs at the typical comic book story stylings along the way. The comic is jointly illustrated by Pere Perez and Marguerite Sauvage, with each artist handling a different time frame to enable the reader to easily separate the flashbacks handled by Sauvage with the present day pages of Perez; tying it all together is Andrew Dalhouse‘s colouring work that looks as if it came straight from a water coloured cartoon.

Visually there’s a very whimsical feel to the comic, which balances brilliantly with Houser’s writing style – I did tell you I’m a huge fan of the series, so trying to be impartial was never going to happen. There have been a few comics this year that have elicited a childlike glee in me as I’m reminded of why comics are so great – Voracious was one of those, and Faith is another.

I used this Jody Houser quote in my review of the first issue, but it’s a great quote, so I’ll end with it today: “[Faith] represents a group of people not featured in comics very often is important, but it’s not the most interesting thing about her. People want to see themselves in comics, but they don’t want to see a character who is just one aspect of themselves—they want to see a fully fledged person.”

Story: Jody Houser Artist: Pere Perez
Flashback Sequence: Marguerite Sauvage
Colour Art: Andrew Dalhouse
Story: 8 Art: 9 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy

Valiant provided  Graphic Policy a FREE copy for review, although I picked it up anyway.