The last Ambassador is chosen, but Choon-Hee’s team faces the first major challenge of their superhero careers. Your Major Spoilers review of The Ambassadors #6 from Image Comics awaits!

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THE AMBASSADORS #6

Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Matteo Scalera
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editor: Sarah Unwin
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $5.99
Release Date: June 7, 2023

Previously in The Ambassadors: The Ambassador for Mexico completes the team as they face their first major conflict together and find out the truth behind Choon-He Chung’s husband’s superhuman upgrade program and the rich guys around the world who have paid him a fortune for it.

CODENAME MEXICO IS ALMOST AN AFTERTHOUGHT

After two big reveals last issue (first that Jin-Sung has been selling super-powers to the world’s billionaires, and second that there’s another renegade super-power loose on the planet), this issue opens with all The Ambassadors in action together to stop a tidal wave jeopardizing Gyeongju. By working together and pooling their limited power pools, the heroes of France, Australia, Korea, Mexico, India, and Brazil are able to lessen the tsunami’s impact. Sadly, they’ve also fallen into a trap and they’re out-numbered 7-to-1. The arrival of Jamie McPhail, renegade super, turns the tide while beginning the kill-fest, as the now-eight Ambassadors rally. Then, all of the bad guys but one gets killed by a secret power nobody knew about. Then, the big bad faces the chief hero, and…

…she punches his skeleton out of the top of his head.

CROWDED AND PREDICTABLE

The long-hinted betrayal by one of the team turns out to be Codename Korea’s executive assistant, as I have suspected since issue #3, and the rest of the issue wraps up some plotlines, introducing a few new members, revealing that Codename Australia lied to get on the team in the first place and making a joke that’s right on the borderline between cringeworthy and offensive for a chaser. It’s the proverbial Bad Ending that some readers (including Major Spoilers EIC Stephen) were worried about, a big clusterschmozz that crowds all the action into a double-sized issue. The initial issues of this book took their time in introducing characters and settings, but as the series continued, it’s clear that decision threw off the pacing of the whole six-issue arc. Codename Mexico appears for the first time here, already empowered and costumed, giving us his name and backstory in asides after the main threat has been dealt with. Matteo Scalera’s art is really excellent, filled with detail and depth, and I especially enjoy the opening page, where a giant hero sits on a cliff awaiting instructions. The coloring, however, goes in heavy on reds and oranges, giving the whole issue a strange cast. It sort of makes sense once the combat starts, but even before the fire and murder, it’s there as when Codename Brazil arrives in her green-orange-and-white costume, but it’s all just shades of red/orange.

BOTTOM LINE: FIVE ISSUES OF BUILD-UP TO… NOTHING

The Ambassadors #6 is doubly disappointing thanks to the interesting work done at the beginning of the series, cramming in the necessary explosive violence, heel turns, lies, and unmotivated character conflict that always seems to creep into Millar’s work in recent years, working against some really well-crafted art and some badly-chosen colors for 2 out of 5 stars overall. This book is likely only the first salvo, as with sister comic, The Magic Order, but I’m not sure I’m willing to check back in with these characters or pick up a second volume of The Ambassadors after the precipitous decline of the last issue or two.

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