Champions #12 review: See the fury of the teen called Cyclops by Alex Widen

Red Rising: The Sons of Ares is a prequel series to Pierce Brown’s NYTBS Red Rising Series. It will cover the birth of a rebellion and provide backstory of some integral characters from the original trilogy.

Comic: Red Rising: The Sons of Ares

Story by: Pierce Brown

Script by: Rik Hoskin

Art by: Eli Powell

Color by: Jordan Boyd

The Red Rising Series is a glorious space opera that tells the story of Darrow, and his quest to destroy the oppressive society he’s been raised in. If it sounds like I’m being deliberately vague, it’s because I am.

You should absolutely check out the Red Rising Series for yourself if you haven’t done so already. It’s a nonstop adrenaline rush of action, intrigue, and betrayal.

Anyway, it’s time to delve into this review.

Summary

Image Courtesy Dynamite Comics for Red Rising: The Sons of Ares Book One

The story begins by telling how humanity colonized the Solar System. Mankind terraformed the inhabitable planets, and genetically modified their own species to a point beyond recognition.

The colonists developed into a color based caste system. Reds, Pinks, Obsidians, and Browns made up the Low Colors. Grays, Oranges, Greens, Yellows, and Blue made up the Mid Colors. And, Coppers, Whites, Silvers, and Golds made up the high colors.

Each color had a specific role in the society. Each color had specific strengths and weaknesses and differing characteristics that made each caste unique.

Image Courtesy Dynamite Comics for Red Rising: The Sons of Ares Book One

Eventually, the ruling class of Golds grew sick of serving the Earth and invaded in a devastating attack, known as an Iron Rain.

The Golds won the war that followed and continued the long process of terraforming and colonizing the inhabitable planets and moons in the Solar System.

And now, with that bit of backstory out of the way, our story begins in earnest.

Varus, a Gold, is kidnapped by a group of masked men and women, of various colors. One of his captors is revealed to be a Green, another a Gray, two more are Reds and a Gold who appears to be their leader.

Image Courtesy Dynamite Comics for Red Rising: The Sons of Ares Book One

His captors demand to know the passcode for his datapad. Varus haughtily demeans them and refuses to take the situation seriously.

The Gold, revealed to be a man by the name of Fitchner, chops Varus’ hand in half, stressing to him the importance of his situation. Varus passes out from the pain.

The rest of the book primarily functions as a backstory on Fitchner.

As an infant, he was left alone on a rock in the woods for 3 days and nights. The Board of Quality Control (responsible for maintaining the quality of Golden stock) hoped he would die out there, but somehow he survived.

Gold culture is one of vanity, so as a small, ugly young man from a poor family, Fitchner was treated terribly for much of his life.

After being enrolled in The Institute, a school/training ground for the elites of the elites of Gold children, Fitchner was paired with a “superior” Gold in The Passage, a process designed to cull the ranks of inferior Golds who could weaken The Society with their incompetence or frailty.

It’s a brutal process, where children literally murder one another, and the book has no qualms showing it in bloody detail.

After winning his battle, Fitchner is assigned to House Mars, the House of Madmen. All students from each of the 12 Houses (named after the Roman Gods) are told to conquer one another and make slaves of the conquered Houses.

Fitchner fled his house, attempting to preserve his sanity, but was captured and brutally beaten by a rival house, until a kind soul stopped them.

Now we flash back to the present.

Varus has come to, and provided his captors with a working passcode. Unfortunately for them, an army has gathered outside, presumably to rescue Varus.

Artwork

As a fan of the original series, I felt the artwork did an incredible job capturing the brutality of the world of Red Rising. It didn’t really capture the beauty that the world offers, but this story didn’t involve much beauty. Overall, the artwork was very well done.

One thing I like in particular, was that the speech bubbles were the same color as their speaker.

So, a Red has a red speech bubble, a Gold a gold, all the way down the line. While it did cause me some grief because of my Red/Green color blindness, I loved the detail. It did, however, reveal that Fitchner was a Gold, which could have been an interesting reveal for a newcomer to the series.

Final Thoughts

Now, I’m not a huge comic book guy, I don’t really like reading them and I’d prefer they were just books. That said, I enjoyed the story of the comic and I appreciated it’s artwork. It was nice to get the backstory on Fitchner, an exceedingly important character in the original trilogy. I wish we got more of a backstory, but I’m sure future issues will address it.

I would definitely recommend anyone who’s read the original trilogy check out The Sons of Ares, but I’m not sure newcomers will enjoy the series as much as those already versed in it.

Even still, I would recommend it to any newcomers brave enough to make the jump.