Everywhere the President goes, there is a military liaison who follows, carrying a briefcase with the codes to launch a nuclear strike––and it’s just been lost. This is the story about what happens when a ten-year-old boy finds a nuclear football and accidentally brings the world to the brink of annihilation. Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1 ranges from the absurd to grounded family drama in a debut that’s packed with the unexpected.

Going into Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1 I expected a straightforward thriller about the nuclear football winding up in the wrong hands. It’s a concept we’ve seen many times before where someone winds up with a bag that looked like theirs but wasn’t. Then, it puts them in danger as the original owner(s), usually bad people, try to get it back. But, this debut written by Eliot Rahal surprised me as so much more in many ways.

Rahal has a gift of blending the serious and straight forward with humor and heart and Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1 is a fine example of that. Opening with a briefing about the case, we pivot to a young boy whose name is Elmo, carries is dad’s briefcase to school, and is having issues with bullies. It adds a bit of shock and heart to the story and as a parent, I couldn’t help but feel a lot of sympathy for the young boy and what he’s going through. There’s teases of more in his past but it comes together to add a way to connect with a character that’ll be at the center of the luggage switch.

But, Rahal doesn’t leave it there. How the briefcase gets switched is an over the top scene that takes things to extremes in multiple ways (the reporting on the event!) and then there’s the final page which was completely unexpected. It all comes together for a comic that’s a great opening chapter.

Phillip Sevy‘s art is solid. With color by Nia Sahadewa and lettering by Frank Cvetkovic, the comic bounces around from grounded family drama, to comedic satire, and then over the top lunacy. It does it all in a way that it flows together and nothing seems out of place. Sevy and Sahadewa’s colors make the event where the briefcase is switched beyond comedic bordering on Tarantino films where blood flows for insane lengths of time taking things from bloody action to comedic camp.

Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1 is a great debut that’s entertaining and will get you to want to come back. Where I expected it to be just a general “chase” story as those with the nuclear football attempt to get it back to where it belongs complete with misunderstandings and those who want it, it’s far more than that.

Story: Eliot Rahal Art: Phillip Sevy
Color: Nia Sahadewa Letterer: Frank Cvetkovic
Story: 8.25 Art: 8.0 Overall: 8.25 Recommendation: Buy

Mad Cave Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

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Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle