Things fall apart fast.
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Patrick Piazzalunga
Colors: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Thomas Mauer
What They Say:
Thirty years ago, we lost THE PATRON in a prehistoric fistfight with the monster WOE! The United Nations secretly replaced the Patron with a perfect duplicate, a Reploid.
This is the story of the five pilots who embody the Patron to repay the world’s faith and hope, and risk their lives to do so. When the leader of Project Patron dies, the team is shattered. Can they come together in time to solve the murder and stop Matthew Mammon, the Patron’s greed-worshipping nemesis, without the world figuring out the truth?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Project Patron debuted in a strong way for me with what Steve Orlando offered as a foundation for the book. I really liked the concept and execution of it, the way we got to know the characters, and the framing of it through Moro as the new addition reporting “secretly” for the UN about the stability of the operation. Patrick Piazzalunga put in some really great pages that highlighted the variety we get with the main cast, how the action was being handled, and just the cool intensity of the fights as well as the neat aspects of the secret organization that was running the program. The combination of talent across the board resulted in an opening issue that I found to be really engaging even if working with familiar things.
With the sudden death of Commander Kone before, the result we got from that brought us some destruction in Michigan and a resolution to it that is not going to go over well. With people dead and Patron simply flying off as though nothing happened, that’s going to be something tugging on the program for a bit. While we don’t get much out of Mammon in this issue, we see just how delighted he is by things progressing as they are (while his servants bring in shark meat for a meal). His plan is in motion and he gets to be the talkative opponent for a bit but is doing it from a safe distance and secretly so that it doesn’t get upended on him. He’s orchestrating something big here and expects the rest to fall quickly, which won’t be a surprise but you hope it doesn’t go too quickly.
The team that works on Patron, however, is mostly definitely in disarray. The return of Patron just leads to more fallout as we see each of them handling it different. Yvonne is a mess but trying to figure out what’s going on and Moro is just providing his report in seeing how the tension is rising. With the way people give up their identities to participate here, there’s nobody to notify about Kone’s death and he gets a funeral by being tossed into the sun so as to remove all evidence of his existence. That doesn’t help the rest either since most expected Kone, and themselves, would just be able to retire at some point and enjoy life a bit. Especially after decades of fighting the good fight. But the reason for Kone’s death and how Patron acted remain a mystery to be investigated, which is likely to just raise the tension and accusations all the more.
In Summary:
While this is more about the reactions than forward progress for the book, Project Patron has a very solid installment here in showcasing the reactions and trying to work through what happened. It digs a bit more into how the program works and what people who are a part of it expect to be of their lives when all is said and done and that does help a good bit in smoothing things out. Orlando’s script lets us get a few more clues out of Moro with their dialogue and I really just love the look of the book in general, even if it’s almost washed out in blues/greens in this one that keeps it dark and cool. I’m looking forward to seeing more of what’s to come as it feels like there’s a lot of potential to tap into here.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: May 12th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
