MASKS continues with its third installment. I’ve read many crossovers in the past, but none like this. It grabs a bunch of lesser known heroes and puts them in a late 1930’s setting. No superpowers, no mountain destroying villains, just a bunch of men and woman with masks fighting for justice. Notice how I put justice and not the law? This event has been asking a question…if the law was obviously unjust, would you follow it? You kind of have to, right? I mean it’s the law. That’s where these characters come in, to fight against it. #3 introduces a new character to the mix and hints of more to come. Whether you’re familiar with these guys or not, you should be reading MASKS.

Here’s the official description from Dynamite:

With criminals and corrupt politicians in power, the masked vigilantes are on the run. The Spider ventures to Albany to investigate the newly elected governor who has signed all of the unjust measures into law, while Green Hornet seeks to find the secret masters of the Justice Party. The Shadow encounters other heroes who have run afoul of the Black Legions, and still more individuals are inspired to don masks and take to the streets in the name of justice.

It starts out with a reporter claiming how good it is that the Justice Party is in power now. Britt Reid, aka the Green Hornet, still has connections up in the newspaper business, so he ventures out to see if he could get some information. Meanwhile Miss Fury and Green Lama are led into a trap, what they discover is truly interesting. Chris Roberson handles the characters well, easily making them diverse. The Shadow gets some of the best scenes and lines. This issue does a good job establishing the despair of when a corrupt political party takes control. You can see it on the citizens’ faces of how truly miserable the whole thing is. The main new hero introduced is Captain Crossbones, I mean Black Terror. He’s basically a 40’s version of the Punisher, I’m looking forward to seeing him next to the other characters.

It’a a shame Alex Ross couldn’t do the interiors for the whole series, it would have been fantastic. Still, Dennis Calero does a solid job. The facial expressions on the citizens really reflect on how sad society is at the moment. Once again, Ross does a very stunning cover, featuring all the characters currently seen with Captain Crossbones Black Terror taking center stage. The variants are all very good, but don’t quite capture that ‘wow’ feeling Ross’s cover has.

Overall, another great issue of MASKS. The story moves forward nicely and introduces a few new characters. There’s plenty of cool character scenes too, from the Shadow’s entrance with Miss Lane (Lois?) and Mr. Chalmers to Kato having words with Rothko. I’ll be looking forward to the next installment.

4/5