Super-Powered Comics: The Contingent #1

It’s not often that I run across a new original superhero publication from a truly independent company. But that is exactly the case with the first issue of The Contingent by Mindstorm Comics.

Written by Zack Kruse with art by the eponymous Zeu, The Contingent reads much like the Nunzio DeFillipis and Christina Weir version of the New Mutants from a few years back. The story revolves around a young metahuman named Miguel who a mysterious organization (which I assume is called the Contingent) tracks down in his home in Bolivia. He has some kind of strange energy power, although the nature of it, isn’t made clear in this issue. In fact, very little is made clear in this issue, and that’s a bit of a shame. Miguel travels to his new school which is very much the X-Mansion campus right out of the film. He meets Richie, his telekinetic roommate, and that brings the issue to a close.

Now I am not a hater on decompression (not automatically anyway), but for a debuting independent publisher in an incredibly turbulent marketplace, this seems like an odd way to go with this book. It reminds me of J. Torres’ Sidekicks from a few years ago, but even that initial story gave a little more satisfaction than this work. Looking at the cover alone, we have four players who we haven’t even met yet! Nor do we have any real conflict of any kind.

I can only assume the creators assumed that do to the nature of the direct market, anyone who ordered issue one was automatically locked in to issue two (thanks Previews!) Even so for $3.50, I expect a little more than this. The Contingent may very well have a lot of potential, but we will have to wait another month to find it.

Let’s hope the market will allow it to get that far.