Jimmy Woo is trying to set up the Agents of Atlas but is Crescent and her Guardian Io up to the challenge? Come find see this 10 year old kick butt in Future Fight Fights: Crescent & Io #1 from Marvel Comics.

FUTURE FIGHT FIRSTS: CRESCENT & IO #1

Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Jon Lam
Colorist: Paris Alleyne
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: November 6th, 2019

Previously in Future First Firsts: Before Jimmy Woo assemble the Agents of Atlas, the heroes had to first discover their abilities. In this series of one-shots, we finally begin to see the secret origins of many of these heroes. Come find out how the young South Korean martial art prodigy and her spiritual bear guardian came to be!

PUSHED INTO A CORNER

Dan Bi is a student in Seoul and is a talented taekwondo martial artist. Yet not everything is happy for poor Dan Bi. Her dad works long hours in his antique store trying to pay their bills and her mother left the family after falling out of love. Recently, Dan Bi’s Dad has been taking late night visitors and ushering her out of the house to conduct these meetings. On one such night, Dan Bi was never picked up from taekwondo training and she rushes home with a bad feeling. She finds her home ransacked and she quickly looks for signs of her father and what happened. However, she is not alone and quickly hides under the bed and finds a red mask with a crescent. She overhears the aggressors talking about her father running black market deals and they are looking for a particular artifact. When it came time to defend herself, she dons a mask that summons a bear spirit known as Io to protect her. Taking on the name Crescent, she begins to search for her lost father and her investigations led her to Jimmy Woo who offered his assistance in finding her dad.

ANOTHER YOUNG HERO

I once had a person question me about why characters and heroes are born from struggle and that is because struggle is interesting to read. The character that has to overcome obstacles is much more heroic from our perspective. On top of that, a person who struggles is relatable. Crescent is no exception. She has suffered from the consequences of her parents and needed to step past it to become a hero. While reading this story I found myself being plagued by some thoughts.

Firstly, I couldn’t develop an opinion on the parents. Crescent’s mother left her suddenly, yet the book didn’t lead me to want to sympathize or hate her. It almost felt like a statement of fact, she left and this is the consequence. Same with the father. Dan Bi’s father did some really bad things in the name of trying to support his family. I think the writing and the art wanted to me to make some solid opinions on these characters but I couldn’t be swayed one way or another. I think this shows a slight weakness. The writing tried to convince me to feel a certain way but didn’t quite get me there.

Secondly, I don’t know what I think about having such a young protagonist. In comics, we see young heroes all the time. Since I’ve become a parent and I have aged, it is harder for me to really appreciate characters like Damien Wayne and Crescent and I just don’t quite understand how Jimmy Woo can put this young girl in danger. Between this trope and the confusion I had about the parents I found myself quite off put by the contents in this novel.

BOTTOM LINE: IT IS DECENT

I really like what they are doing with Agents of Atlas but I think this is the character I am least supportive of. The art was good and it is needed to get a complete story. My suggestion is to pick this up if you are trying to get the full Agents of Atlas experience but pass if you aren’t following the main title. 3 out of 5 stars for this book from me.

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