Is a comic book series that’s telling the tale of police squad gone rogue really delivering something that’s worthy of your money and time?  Read on to find out.

The official description from Dynamite:

The Rules: in which our heroes take a further step down a very dangerous road and lay out their battle plan. But not everyone is happy with the unit’s new direction, especially some of the other players in the game..

On the surface the concept of this specific title sounds absolutely intriguing, as we have a team of uniquely qualified individuals deciding in unison to become a death squad.  They’re attempting to do it logically by detaching their emotions for the people they gun down while focusing in on whether or not that individuals death will serve a higher cause.

In short what we have here is a tale featuring some bad decisions that the author, Garth Ennis, attempts to wrap around the paths these previously honest cops attempt to take.  The overall structure of the narrative is quite sound but there are moments where an overabundance of text does little to help move things in the right direction.  The dialogue is at best bloated as an overabundance of rationalizations majorly slows the pace to a painful crawl hindering this release from becoming an engaging ride in its own right.

If there is a central star to this little piece of fiction, it’s the art by Craig Cermak who effortlessly illustrates this complicated world of good guys gone bad.  Whether it’s an intense conversation about rules or an assassination attempt the versatile talent absolutely nails each panel with a steady hand an outstretched arm.  Each pencil stroke offers up authenticity that humanizes this bloated but nonetheless intriguing journey of a team turned into a hit squad.

Red Team #2 is a solid package that seems far too bogged down by an overabundance of text that’s highly unnecessary for the story it’s attempting to tell. Nonetheless the overall content earns a light recommendation because if for no other reason there’s a lot of room for for future improvement.

3/5