BANG!

by Matt Kindt, Willfredo Torres (Illustrator), Nayoung Kim (Illustrator)

"A great #$%^ed up blend of James Bond and Tintin."--Keanu Reeves

From New York Times bestselling Mind MGMT creator MATT KINDT and Quantum Age 's WILFREDO TORRES comes a brand-new pulp-inspired tale of action, mystery, and altered reality.

A best-of the-best secret agent with memories he couldn't possibly possess, a mystery writer in her 80s who spends her retirement solving crimes, a man of action with mysterious drugs that keep him ahead of a constant string of targeted disasters, a seemingly omnipotent terrorist organization that might be behind it all . . .

And they're all connected to one a science-fiction author with more information than seems possible, whose books may hold the key to either saving reality or destroying it.

Collects BANG! #1-#5, along with all covers, a sketchbook section, and pinups by Matt Kindt.

What Knives Out did for whodunits Bang! does for 007-style spy adventures by flipping sexist and culturally condescending tropes on their head."--DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD

"I will literally read anything by Matt Kindt or Wilfredo Torres. Put them together and it's magic. Skip dinner and buy this book"--Mark Millar

"A top secret agent, an elderly crime fiction writer who also solves crimes, members of a sprawling terrorist organization, and a drug-fueled action hero find themselves inexplicably linked to a sci-fi author whose novels could hold the key to saving all of reality...or destroying it."--io9

"I #$%^ing love this comic! it's literally everything I want out of one of my favorite creators!! Congrats to the entire team. This is how you make comics!!"--Brian Michael Bendis

"What does a secret agent with false memories, a sci-fi author who knows more than he should, and a global secret organization have in common? They're the opening threads to what Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres have in store with their first collaboration from Dark Horse Comics, BANG! "--NEWSARAMA

" BANG is a fun, twisty spy thriller with a great meta-twist."--Jay Faerber

"Matt Kindt has demonstrated his skill at trippy genre storytelling in past work like Ether and Mind MGMT , while Wilfredo Torres' dynamic art is perfectly suited for both spy action and meta-fictive revelations.... Fascinating."--ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"I love Matt Kindt and I love Wilfredo Torres, so it's no surprise that I loved BANG! It's like the weirdo, mind-bending James Bond story I didn't know I wanted."--Jeff Lemire

"Thanks to Kindt and Torres we finally have our Idris Elba - James Bond, and it's exactly as cool as you imagined."--Jeff Parker

"Imagine James Bond being abducted by David Lynch and forced into a maze that shifts with every step forward. The ground is unsteady. The walls of reality move. This is the world of Bang!, a spy thriller expertly conducted by Kindt and Torres, a mystery box that truly starts off with a... Well. You know." --Van Jensen

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Action, Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery, Comix

152 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four action heroes become aware of something larger going on with a science fiction writer. The book ends just as it feels it's getting started. It doesn't give you any of the answers you want to see. The story could have potential if there's more, but I wouldn't recommend reading this until there is.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kindt takes a handful of heroes from different pulp genres and has them slowly become aware of their own artifice. So we have a James Bond knock-off, a John McClane copy with chemical extras, a bionic woman/Batwoman type, and basically a feistier Asian-American she-Poirot. There's a terrorist group, Goldmaze, who think the world as we know it is fake, and want to prove it by basically destroying it. And there is a Philip K. Dick-inspired novelist who seems to have created these heroes and Goldmaze.

It's all very meta, and a lot of fun, but also ends on a huge cliffhanger, so I can't really evaluate the narrative until I know where all of this is going. There is a sort of self-contained story arc in the book, but when you go this meta, it doesn't feel enough. It's a good start of a bigger story, though.

Torres' art is great, action scenes are clear as daylight.

(Kindly received an ARC from Dark Horse Books through Edelweiss)

[Jordan West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun enough, and enjoyed the PKD character, but overall my main takeaway is the same as with the Divinity saga; that this has been done before, and better - chiefly by Grant Morrison, in this case.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bang! Is Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres’ version of a comic series that brings a bunch of different superheroes together, like Marvel, X-Men, but maybe more like League of Gentlemen by Alan Moore or Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer, with more of a pulpy sense of humor and a dose of irony. And I like it, but then, I like Matt Kindt, all his tales of psychological and psychic espionage.

What distinguishes it from others using a Let’s Get the Gang Together and Save the World trope is a meta-fictional dimension. I’ll explain, in a minute. Kindt is like Moore and Lemire, Ed Brubaker and Brian Vaughn, crazy in love with the history of comics, just all of it, and also maybe the history of any kind of genre storytelling, in any medium, as long as they can have fun with it, though also going back in time to correct some of the endemic sexism and racism and issues of representation.

This one involves Thomas McCord, a kind of James Bond guy (only he’s black, looking like Idris Elba); John Shaw, a Bruce Willis type-guy; Paige Turnier, a Miss Marple sort of detective in her eighties, though she’s now Asian, and a kind of Batwoman character, and they all seem to be joining forces to defeat some terrorist organization, Goldmaze (not Goldfinger).

The broader framework has it that an author, Philip Verge, probably someone like Philip K. Dick, has written weird sci fi books that prefigure actual events. Time travel? Alternate reality? So “reality” may in fact be text-based, driven by this possibly magical writer (who, by the way, appears in myriad Kindt works), and so these books (you read different pages of his books throughout to see the connection) could be a key to Saving the World. Somehow. It’s the first volume and that was a hella lot to set up. (Okay, maybe too much? Nah. . . . Over-the-top is a matter-of-taste; this series is done by someone who is clever).

In the appendix there’s an interview with Kindt by a journalist, PV, who happens to be Verge, whoa!

Matt Kindt is just fun, and illustrator Wilfredo Torres also knows how to bring that kind of fun to the page, too, with full color, and goofy energy, a good match for this series.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

A thin and tepid pastiche/metafiction stew wherein Matt Kindt explains the changing faces of James Bond, and then teams him up with John McClane from Die Hard, a woman driving KITT from Knight Rider, and an Asian variation on Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. It's a 1980s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- which Kindt cites as an influence along with the more recent Black Hammer in his afterword/interview -- with the all '80s cheese you can stomach.

[Adam M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty great writing from Matt Kindtand really great art from Wilfredo Torres. A bunch of mystery/action movie/book tropes are here in a "getting the team together" story. There is a mysterious villainous organization and a story teller (who is supposed to be a Philip K Dick knock off) who ties it all together. - I'm glad Kindt didn't do the art for this one, he has sketches in the back and his version of this would have turned me off. Torres on the other hand was masterful in this type of story.
I'd rate this better, but this is it, no more of this story. I really would like to know what happens next! It was interesting enough, there were layers and intrigue, what a bummer.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything in here flew over my head. I was lost from start to finish. Maybe I’ll read this again later with a clear head. (Probably won’t tho)

[Kyle Dinges · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this but it was weirdly unfocused. There's a few different things Kindt is trying to do and it's all jammed in a 5-issue series. It might have worked better had the first 4 issues not been, in their entirety, what amounted to a "getting the gang together" sequence from a heist movie. That left Kindt to jam all of the plot developments in the final 20 pages. It was somehow 80% way too expansive and then the final 20% was way too compressed. I like Torres' art. It didn't bring a ton of extra value here, but it was solid. This was just too half-baked.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of the pulpy stuff; especially if they can explore what makes them tick. Bang is equal parts anthology and equal parts League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for popular spy fiction. I mean this uses the idea of Idris Elba being James Bond. Throw in alternate Jason Bourne, Inspector Morse, even Wilton Knight and KITT and you get something that people can only dream of happening.

All of which revolves around a conspiracy theory about the world not being real. All because events that happen have been written in mass produced format. This brings a rather cynical look at our favorite entertainment and genres. Is everything we like just a bunch of complementary ideas that people mash together until they fall out of favor? Does having a formula for a plot like a hero's journey just mean that events are engineered to fit an agenda? Who can really say?

Just look at the post closings of each issue. Not only do they reveal stuff about the characters and their situations but also how these same formulas find ways to write themselves.

[April Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fun, and I really enjoyed it. The meta flows pretty strongly through this, which amused the hell out of me, and the story was so pulpy and wild- what if Philip K. Dick had written James Bond, John McClane, a female version of Iron Man, and a French-Korean Miss Marple/Jessica Fletcher hybrid? You'd get Bang!, that's what. Throw in an evil organization, Goldmaze, out to destroy the world for reasons that are not clear, and you've got yourself an "I know some kids, got a barn, let's put on a show!" happening. I'm not going to describe the plot, that'll just spoil things, I'll leave it at this was an action-adventure-y good time!

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s nothing worse than when a writer comes up with a dynamite premise, and then drops the ball on the execution. That’s not a problem with BANG! — a modern version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with summer blockbuster action aplenty.

I’m always a little disappointed when Matt Kindt doesn’t illustrate his own stories, but Wilfredo Torres is just perfect for this book. His action scenes are slick and kinetic, and even scenes of characters standing around talking are taut with tension. Just gorgeous stuff.

[kaitlphere · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cast of characters is very unique. I would love to read a longer series that shows us more of their stories before and after the events of this book. I didn't follow the motivations of the villain, but got the sense that perhaps he was a chaos agent more than a logically motivated character.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this one up cheap as chips (roughly $3) and it was ok but nothing special. Typical secret agent story featuring some reality bending with books written about each character detailing their past, present and futures. Each character features in their own story each with their own unique abilities for the first few chapters then they all come together in a team up.

Lot of good ideas which never get the chance to be expanded on as I believe there were only the 5 issues written and then it was discontinued. Such a short limited series doesn’t really do the story justice. But it was a quick easy read and was worth the buy.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...fine..?
Kindt is a sort of one-note writer, where everything relies on a secret and hidden agenda by some ultimately faceless person/group, and that is the only thing that drives the plot.
Tried this because I was told it was his best book to date, but unimpressed.

[Pop Bop · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Alt-Reality, Meta, Action Pulp Comic Homage

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD: The blurbs, reviews, and comments on this book are enthusiastic, but don't really give you much of an idea of what you're actually going to read. I enjoyed this a good deal and want potential readers to consider giving it a try. What follows is vague enough to not spoil things, but offers a taste of what's on offer.

This is James Bondian in the sense that it involves, in part, a Bond style secret agent. There are some sly references to Bond. But this isn't part of the Bond canon, or like the Fleming Estate authorized extensions that have popped up in books and graphic novels with some regularity. It's just Bond-ish in part.

The grander setup is that a mysterious author, Philip Verge, has tapped into either time traveling or an altered reality or parallel worlds, and so has written books that prefigure future "actual" blockbuster action events. (Understand, though, that words like actual and real are used rather fluidly throughout these issues.) Anyway, Verge has a number of different series, and we meet the "real" heroes of each series. There's a Bond guy, (Thomas Cord). There's a Bruce Willis/"Die Hard" sort of guy, (John Shaw). There's an elderly retired mystery writer, a la "Murder She Wrote", (Paige Turnier) . And so on. (There's even a female "Knight Rider" angle.) Each character comes complete with a little mystery background to keep the reader guessing. In each "Bang!" issue one of these heroes is introduced, has adventures, meets Verge, and is drawn into the fight against "Goldmaze", the terrorist organization that spans the entire series.

The writing is clever and the action is fast paced. Stories are introduced, or explained, with full page printed "excerpts" from the Verge books, which is the smartest infodump monologuing solution ever. There are loads of jokes and shoutouts to the fictional heroes and works that are being parodied. Well, they aren't really parodies, they're more like good humored homages. (Indeed, you could go back further to the Phantom, and Shadow, and Doc Savage, and so on, but that's probably too far back to connect with all of today's readers.) The Bond character here is Black, which is a nice touch. The John McClane guy looks like Bruce Willis, which makes sense. The mystery writer is a cross between Angela Lansbury and Miss Marple, which also works. Michael Knight is now a wheelchair bound woman with extreme skilz, which was a sweet call. It all seems to be heading toward an odd throwback gang of heroes, but that remains to be seen in future issues. For now, it's just good insider fun that stands up perfectly well as straight action adventure.

The art works well. Since the narrative and the meta approach is so trippy it might have been too much to add gonzo drawing. Instead, here, we get crisp, straightforward drawing, pencils, coloring, and letters. Characters are expressive, and the action is perfectly clear, but the drawing takes a back seat to the story telling.

The first issue doesn't really give you a clear view of the overall frame of the series. The first volume, which collects the first five issues, does. And I'm now all settled in and ready to follow this wherever it goes. The first five do give you a more or less complete story arc, but there is a promise of more to come.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

[Adam Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite tropes in comic books is Getting The Gang Together, when a group of heroes who may or may not have a shared history must decide whether or not to team up and become The Avengers or The Justice League, or Planetary, or the BPRD. Often, the gathering of the team can end up being more exciting than the adventures the team has once assembled.

In this book, a group of tropey heroes (an espionage agent, a generic action star, the secret genius action star, the Agatha Christie detective, and a possibly magical pulp writer are all set to cross paths to take down an evil company intent on destroying the world.

Maybe the next volume will be terrible (though Kindt rarely fails to deliver on a premise) but I found myself fully engaged with all of the characters, satisfied by their mini-narrative journeys as they were drawn into the overarching plot, and very much intrigued to see where the series goes from here.

If you've ever looked for a Black Science, Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1, you're going to love this book. And if you've enjoyed Kindt's work on MIND MGMT, Volume One: The Manager, Dept. H, Volume 1: Pressure, and Super Spy, I don't believe this book will disappoint you.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's this fan theory floating around the internet that "James Bond" isn't a real person. Agent 007 is given the codename "James Bond". In this way, all the James Bond films happened exactly as they were portrayed- different actors? Those are actually different people! James Bond was alive in the 60s, and the 70s, and the 80s, always young because the agents assuming the identity "James Bond" were fresh and young. This all goes out the window when Daniel Craig is cast and they start giving Bond a family and a backstory and all that, and everything doesn't really work anymore.

But here's Thomas Cord! He's, for all intents and purposes, James Bond. And he's recalling certain memories of a previous life it would be imossible for him to live. He can't be thirty years old, but have been a young man fighting terrorists in the 60s? And in the 70? And 80s? Who is he, really? And he stumbles upon an author who's written countless books that predict the future down to the dialogue, detailing his life and the lives of other extraordinary action heroes and spies. He sets above gathering a group of them to take down the evil organization that's set on controlling the world.

And he does. He spends four issues getting together the team as Matt Kindt explores who these other pastiches are. And then in issue five, as soon as the team is together and ready to take on the villain, the story ends. We get four issues with a surface level introduction to these characters and one single issue of the actual plot unfolding. This volume got less interesting as it went on, got more limited, and didn't give itself time to do anything with the plot it set up.

[chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept, but my problem with Matt Kindt prevails: his plots always wrap up really fast and it's just... unsatisfying.

[47Time · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philip Verve is a novelist believed to have embedded secrets in his books. Thus, they have become desirable for both the British MI-X and the criminal organization Goldmaze. Thomas Cord is a skilled agent working for MI-X, tasked with recovering the novels. At the end of a successful mission he is blindsided and killed by Fanny, a woman he trusted. Later we see another agent named Thomas Cord with the same mission. He gets close to Verve who reveals that Thomas Cord is an identity used by many other MI-X agents who were brainwashed. And it's the main character of one of Verve's novels.

John Shaw is a man with some awesome abilities he can enhance using special inhalers provided by a mysterious source. After he successfully prevents a dirty bomb from destroying a city, he is contacted by the Thomas Cord who contacted Verve. John too is a character from Verve's novels, as is Dr. Michele Queen, the billionaire vigilante, and former agent and current investigator miss Tournier who fought alongside on of the Cords 60 years before.

With the four-man team gathered together, Verve reveals that the books were written by his automatic writing machine as he was receiving messages from something he calls Black Laser. It predicted the future for each character. The final twist comes when Verve reveals himself to be behind Goldmaze. He intends to kill the team so his organization can continue their nefarious deeds, but they are too skilled. They destroy the Goldmaze headquarters and all of Verve's books. Verve is thought dead, but he in fact survives and continues to write books that foretell the future. Cord's team will be ready when Verve resurfaces.

[Peter Derk · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise is a good one, but...think of this like a heist movie.
In a heist movie, how far in should we have our team assembled and be ready to do a thing? I'd say 25% at most. Fair? Because then you have to make some plans, do a runthrough that doesn't go well, probably throw a romantic subplot in there for no reason, and if it's the heist book I wrote, someone has to eat a piece of human feces.

Ahem.

Bang!'s team is assembled probably something like 75% of the way through, and as fun as that portion is, I think the payoff of team assembly is the thing the team does, and we get to it a mite too late here.

My other issue is that we get an initial explanation of what's going on, and cool, I'm in. But then we go through the process of explaining this three more times with three other characters. I quite like the characters, especially the weird John McClane with magic inhalers. That shit was cool. I liked seeing them do stuff. But all the questions they have or unknowns they wrestle with are knowns to me, the reader, so it's a little like if you took the movie Inception but instead of explaining how it works once, Leo had to explain it to every character involved in the plot.

This is better than a 2-star book, but I subtracted one star for including novel pages that are just solid walls of text, probably not necessary, and that had occasional damage to them like blood splatters and such, which make reading a bit more of a chore and slow down this otherwise speedy book quite a bit.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see how one could enjoy the concept and plot of Bang! It's a nice little twist on the tale of James Bond and, coincidentally, a bunch of other well-known characters. But what a chore it is to actually get to the story. The first issue introduces us to our main hero, then has him go through an adventure before it is revealed to him that, surprise, his whole identity is a sham and he's just a puppet. Alright, this is where the adventure begins...
Except it doesn't, because we get the same premise repeated three more times, with 1-2 pages of new information about what our heroes have to do pasted at the end. It's incredibly repetitive, not too engaging and kills any momentum the series had.
Then issue 5 comes and it's a madcap dash to the end because, guess what, there's no time left to develop the plot, the characters or anything about this world. But it's okay, because the story will continue. But I'm out, I'm not looking for more of this.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comenzó con una idea súper interesante. Pero tras el segundo capítulo parece que quiso abarcar más de lo que prometió al inicio. Pensé que esto iba a ser una interesante deconstrucción de James Bond, pero terminé con una enorme decepción al volverse una historia tan predecible.

Lo único que me gustó visualmente fueron las secuencias. Los trazos de Torres son más conservadores que como los he visto antes al momento de dibujar personajes y especialmente los femeninos.

Todo sucedió muy rápido. La lectura es ágil, y Kindt es un forjador de palabras de primera, pero el hecho de hacer el villano no solo predecible, sino facil de averiguar tanto para el lector como para los personajes.

Te deja en un cliffhanger, pero ya para el final se desvaneció completamente. No estare presente para el volumen dos.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun little surprise from Kindt, although with someone else handling the art. The core premise is intriguing, as is the case with most Kindt projects. We have various people of particular skill like action heroes and secret agents whose entire lives have been written about by an author years ago. Somehow this writer has been able to write about their lives and their efforts to fight a secret organization known as Goldmaze.

I enjoyed how we dove into each "fictional" characters story world and then tried to tie things together later on. This volume of the story is really just a big origin book that sets the stage but we don't quite get to push things forward to really make the most of the cast of assembled characters.

I do hope we get more Bang! stories some time in the future.

[Eli · Rating 5 out of 5]

The praise for this book is apparently universal. That’s a little unusual for a book that is so unabashedly pulpy. The fact is that is is so ridiculously creative, so well written, so beautifully drawn. Honestly you might need to re-read parts or even all to get a firm grip on what’s going on. I did. It doesn’t matter it’s so good re-reading was actually a treat. It’s sort of a spy, mystery, adventure, save the world book. If that sounds confusing it isn’t really once you get a handle on things. It reminds me in the best ways of the first time I read League of Extraordinary Gentlement. It’s not that wildly epic but it is just as much fun. And a lot less abrasive if you found that book offensive. A definite must read and one of the most creative books I’ve read.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" sort of comic that brings together a James Bond analogue, a Bruce Willis action hero (even looks like BW), an enhanced female operative, and an older Miss Marple-type Asian woman who solves mysteries (and who has a past connection to our James Bond figure). They're brought together by a science fiction author in the vein of Philip K. Dick, who seems to be writing their stories as they go, and who wants them to finally take down the counter-spy agency, GoldMaze (think SPECTRE). Unfortunately, things are really only set up here in this first volume, with greater adventures seemingly in store which haven't, to date, materialized. The art is decent.

[Jeff Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4?

This is a fun and self-aware comic book about various kinds of heroes in pulp fiction (muscular action heroes, super heroes, detectives, secret agents).

Thomas Chord is a secret agent (that is somehow embodying the consciousness of a previous Thomas Chord?). He squares off against the Bond-like terrorist organization, Goldmaze. He learns that a series of pulp fiction books tell the future of each of their heroes (including their deaths). He then sets out to track down each hero and take down Goldmaze.

I’m glad Kindt did NOT do the art in this one. It’s so much clearer and easier to understand, visually, than most of his work. As usual, this is a high sci-fi concept with a slightly undercooked plot (as I’ve come to expect).

All in all, a fun read.

[Asha McKay · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I picked this up knowing that I love Kindt’s artwork and graphic novels. I really didn’t get all the references that everyone keeps mentioning in their reviews, I just liked the story line because it was both familiar and fresh. Each character - spy, muscle, doctor, detective, academic - is reminiscent of typical stereotypes throughout pop culture, but they all have a new little twists to make them more complex. Each character more or less has their own story within the volume, and they all get tied in together throughout. I’m curious to know how the story will continue, as it this arc seems to have finished.

[Jason A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I read for the IRCB 2021 challenge. Moves this up in the list as I wanted to read fear case a recent comic by the same author and I heard there was at least an Easter egg of a connection between the two. This book features a team up of popular hero type twisted and pushed just shy of parody. We have a James Bond type character and a John McClain\Die Hard type even some Knight Rider thrown in for good measure. Sounds crazy but it works in a fun way. Add in a doomsday cult and a sci-fi writer who may be more than he seems and it adds up to a fun ride. Looking forward to reading more and checking out more from Matt Kindt.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to like in this weird story of a series of pulp novels that tell the future, and the team of super-operatives who are assembled by the books' author to prevent the future he has already foreseen. The problem is, the first volume is all setup with a rushed finale that just doesn't sit right. Also? In an age where so many graphic novels feel like an elaborate series pitch to Netflix, it would have been nice if one of the characters wasn't visually modeled after John McClane (some of us still remember Die Hard, you know) or our common disappointment of Idris Elba not being James Bond. Guys, come on.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

What if James Bond teamed up with Jessica Fletcher, the killer from Death Wish, and a female version of Knight Rider and they were all trapped in a Philip K. Dick novel? That's the premise of this oddball series, which Kindt says is his tribute to 1980s pulp-style characters.
First Thomas Card, super-secret agent, wakes up and realizes his memories stretch back further than he's been alive. The Dick character sends him to gather the others to fight against Goldmaze, a doomsday cult that believes reality is a lie.
It's an interesting set-up. Not so interesting I'm sold on V2, but I might pick it up.