The Programme vols. 1 & 2

Some might think it odd that DC’s Wildstorm imprint has produced not one, but two mini-series about the post-Cold War Soviet Union and how it’s secret superhuman programs affect its present day.  I find it less odd that the one mini that almost wasn’t completed, Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon’s “The Winter Men,” was the more satisfying of the two.  Why is it less odd?  That’s just how I see things.  That said, while “The Programme” by Peter Milligan and C.P. Smith won’t leave a black mark on either’s resume it doesn’t really do anything interesting enough to justify its existence.

Years after the end of the Cold War, four Russian superhumans have been reactivated and decide to make their presence known by confronting American armed forces in a country that’s serving as a stand-in for Afghanistan.  Seeing as how it’s only a matter of time before they make their way to the U.S. itself, the C.I.A. takes it upon itself  to track down the two American superheroes our program produced:  a failed folk singer who now owns a bar, and an African-American who has been programmed with the personality of the infamous Senator Joe McCarthy.  While Milligan’s writing has its moments and doesn’t follow conventional narrative expectations, it’s hard to care about anything in these volumes because his delivery is so unfocused and his characters are either shallow, unlikable, uninteresting, or some combination of all three.  C.P. Smith’s art is definitely interesting to look at, but while it conveys the story well it doesn’t make it or the characters any more meaningful to read about.

In short, if you have to read a story about Russian superhumans from Wildstorm, you’re still better off sticking with Lewis and Leon’s “The Winter Men.”  After reading these two volumes, I’m just glad I found them in one of the half-off bins at Comic-Con rather than paying full price for it somewhere else.