The more complex Black Badge gets, the more I love it. This new series continues to feel more like a part of the Mind MGMT world than its initial three issues suggested that it might. It is already a part of the Grass Kings world. Could Kindt be creating a multifaceted universe much like Stephen King’s novels? The layout of the books and the additional content would also suggest this.

Black Badge lives under the guise of YA fiction, but it does it with the same clever irreverence that Kindt’s other genre books do. In this world, groups of elite boy and girl scouts are trained to be secret field agents for the US government. They are sent into high-risk situations with the intent that they will be overlooked and underestimated.

Now, the Black Badge have gone to an island for their jamboree, but this isn’t only about singing around a campfire.  It’s about living in the wilderness while also beating one of the other Badge groups to a final location. Kindt has taken the best of the YA novel tropes and bent them to his will.

As the group of five try to survive and beat the other teams, we find out some really interesting secrets about some of the members. This specific revelation and comic book issue deal directly with the Pink Badges – the elite girl scouts – and they are awesome.

Which Badge group can or can’t be trusted? That’s what our Black Badge team needs to figure out. What is actually going on in the upper echelons of the government program that created the Badges? Kindt and Tyler Jenkins have tapped into a really fun and engrossing real world of adventure that’s been missing from comic books recently. Every thing is either fantasy or superheroes. Black Badge is a breath of fresh air.
 

Creative Team: Matt Kindt (story), Tyler Jenkins (art), Hilary Jenkins (colors), Jim Campbell (letters), Eric Harburn (editor), Scott Newman (designer)
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
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