The existence of metahumans is not the secret. The widespread but heavily whispered abuse of nascent technology is not the secret. The inevitable feuding between bureaucrats, technocrats, and entrenched militarists is not the secret.
In THE VIGIL, the secret is that metahumans are so abundant as have become lab experiments on the whim of a struggling government, the secret is that decades of advanced technology have wrought a multitude of success and destruction, and the secret is that the feuds propelling these advancements are about to spill into the public. Readers keen on superhero stories that are not subject to the usual, clean, predictable parlays will enjoy the curiosity and daring with which THE VIGIL attempts to resolve its most novel challenges.
Nudging into the unpredictable may not be what Nia Saha asked for when she's assigned to oversee a group of metahuman operatives, but the woman's intelligence and adaptability are clearly what will determine whether she sinks or swims. Nia is generally circumspect, but knows when to pull the trigger; she's observant, but knows when to voice her opinion; and she's patient, but isn't afraid of having difficult conversations. And so, when the woman becomes the field admin for metahumans who skirt the line between government-sanctioned justice and private interest, Nia tasks herself with doing everything she can to keep everyone sane (including herself).
Nia's team includes an emotionally unstable ex-military officer with electromagnetic abilities (Maj. Aqib Khan), a child genius with incredible hacking skills (Castle), a combat expert whose speed and physiological resilience is as of yet unresearched (Dinah), a master of infiltration and disguise (Saya), and an invulnerable man (Tyaga). Now, if only the team's overall supervisor, Dr. Sankaran, would stop keeping secrets from the group, then maybe, just maybe, the team could complete a mission without accidentally killing a bunch of people, blowing stuff up, or second-guessing the motives behind their assignment.
THE VIGIL pulls together a very condensed but compelling story. Nia sees these events as the audience sees them: a gang of awkward and unremarkable people, with dangerous intellect or abilities, working under the radar to locate technology or information for faceless leadership. And the creative team frames the narrative accordingly, including characters of Indian and South Asian heritage, building ordinary personas on the precipice of greatness (e.g., failed athlete, outcast soldier, brilliant child runaway), and integrating bad guys who are just as nebulously ambitious as the good guys. Dinah, for example, ever in pursuit of a found family, tends to feel sorry for herself; and yet, when things go bad, she never hesitates to put her fists out front to keep the team alive.
The story of the characters of THE VIGIL is remarkably simple, but one often feels the likelihood of encountering similarly drafted narratives is notoriously slim. One of the comic's recurring themes concerns the effort required to discern the line between "regular people" and those on the front lines of increasingly dangerous power struggles.
And in this context, the story, characters, and conflicts of India- or Asia-centered adventures are ripe for engagement. Ram V's story ventures deeper into science fiction the further the reader goes, but the baseline premise of something familiar slowly evolving into something fantastic, if slightly different, is perhaps the best way to encounter a new superhero book.