Black Badge Vol. 1 (Black Badge, #1)

by Matt Kindt

Tyler Jenkins (Illustrator) and Hilary Jenkins (Secondary Author)

An espionage series about a top-secret, elite branch of boy scouts tasked by the government to take on covert missions.

Meet the Black Badges, a top-secret branch of boy scouts tasked by the government to take on covert missions that no adult ever could. Among their organization, the Black Badges are the elite—the best of the best. The missions they’re tasked with are dangerous, and will only get worse as their leader’s attention is split between their objective and tracking down a lost team member. A member who disappeared years ago...presumed dead. Reuniting New York Times bestselling author Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT) and illustrator Tyler Jenkins (Peter Panzerfaust) following their multiple Eisner Award-nominated series Grass Kings, Black Badge is a haunting look at foreign policy, culture wars, and isolationism through the lens of kids who know they must fix the world that adults have broken.

• ISBN10: 1684153530
• ISBN13: 9781684153534
• Publish Date: 28 May 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Boom! Studios
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 128
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Black Badge Vol. 1 through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Black Badge is a new series from Boom! Box. Lately, I’ve been willing to give almost any series from Boom! a chance, simply because they’ve been so awesome about publishing new and different things. Black Badge was no exception to this.
The series is about a particular branch of the boy scouts – the Black Badges. Specifically, the series follows four of them through their harrowing tales of espionage, subterfuge, and tactical maneuvers.




I ended up enjoying this series more than I expected, and have to admit that it was way more intense and riveting than I had anticipated. I strongly recommend it to anybody looking for something different to read.
Black Badge didn’t waste any time throwing us, or the main characters, into the thick of things. I personally love that they chose to have one new member added to an otherwise established team. This gave us an in for the series. The new guy got to ask all the questions we wanted to, thus allowing us to learn along with him. It was an elegant solution to the problem. And I prefer it to having the whole team be full of probies (I don’t think that would have worked with the story they want to tell here).
I love how Black Badge feels like they have to constantly escalate things. It isn’t enough that we have a secret organization within the boy scouts. It isn’t even enough that said secret organization does black ops missions (hence the name, I suspect). Nope, we have to see them figuring out that there’s even more than that to uncover. I’m happy for it because I think it gave the series a lot more lasting power than originally believed – which is saying something.
They’ve set themselves up for a tough go at character development here. I’m not saying it isn’t do-able, just that they made it harder. Most of the kids are pretty hardened and unwilling to show us any cracks or weakness. But that can be a form of character development in its own right – just not necessarily the healthy kind. I’m impressed with what they were able to get out of the characters, and how much they were able to make us care about them.
I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here. It’s clear that they’re building towards a bigger picture – the fourth issue removed any doubt from my mind about that. I just don’t quite know where it’s going just yet. I’ll have to keep reading to find out!


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