The Gist:
Charlotte De La Cruz is not your damsel in distress by any stretch. She’s well educated working in a dead end job which earns her no respect while at night she scours the dark corners of the internet uncovering and indulging in conspiracy theories. She’s also a master gamer when it comes to Virtual Reality.
The Review:
There was a sigh of relief while going over the first few panels and pages of the this Assassin’s Creed outing. Our protagonist is a woman and she does not sit around wondering when the man of her dreams will come about, nor is she a secretary or a interior designer, a trait that most women of film and literature seem to excel in.
So after a failed job interview and a chance at playing Robin Hood, Cruz is hunted down by the men in suits, in this universe they’re known as The Templar Order. Luckily she is saved by a group of assassins who take her to their lair and introduce her to the animus. For those unfamiliar with the games or the comics, the animus is a virtual reality machine which enables the user to sort of travel back in time and re-live events that took place in the past. It all has to do with the machine reading the user’s genetic memory which has been passed down through generations.
Without much hesitation Cruz accepts and travels back into the past, The Salem Witch Trials to be exact and here was the big kicker, her ancestor is a man, and white! An interesting and ballsy touch by writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery. This little twist alone sparked my interest more since Charlotte is the epitome of a modern woman who is then thrust into the past and into the memories as well as the body of a man who doesn’t exactly share such ideologies, especially when he outright let an innocent woman be hanged.
Like most of the Assassin’s Creed titles whether they are games or books, issue one is just gorgeous to look at. The panels and designs are glossy and vibrant, the characters are defined in both design and in character. The story wastes no time in setting up our heroine and sending us both into the action, those credits definitely must go to artist Neil Edwards and colourist Ivan Nunes.
The Verdict:
Overall this is a smashing intro which had me gripped from the start. The gender and race swap is both bold and clever and I can’t wait to see how they are handled as well as how this latest incarnation will progress.
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