Customer Reviews

Global Frequency Vol. 2: Detonation Radio

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3 star:		(2)
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Global Frequency is Mission Impossible for the 21st Century. There are 1001 agents on the Frequency, all in contact with each other via satellite link ups through their mobile phones. If a Frequency agent is in NY trying to deactivate a bomb but has no clue how, another agent in, say, Argentina who works in a bomb squad will walk him through the process. They have experts in almost every field and discipline at hand to quell any emergency.

This is the second collection of Global Frequency. It collects the last six issues of the series. It is amazing how quickly writer Warren Ellis can set up and pay off the situation and the characters in the limited space each issue affords. There is a different artist every issue and there's no complaint about any of them. The art is well suited to each particular story.

This series is highly recommended.

The format is still good: one book in the original comic format held one complete episode. That's good for beginners and for the patience-challenged. It also allows for frequent changes of artist, since each story has a different mood, script, site, and cast. Only Miranda Zero, the lady behind the 1001 specialists, and Aleph, coordinator and hacker supreme, hold continuity across the series.

The stories are varied and generally enjoyable. This time, the "super-secret" aspect of the orgnization is played down - everyone and their dog seems to know who the group is. As a result, there are two direct attacks: one on Miranda herself, one on Aleph's control center. There's a bit of plot inflation under way, too. The final story takes on the U.S military and, of course, wins. The losers include "credibility", since this particular plot involves top-secret satellites so big that any kid with a telescope could pick them out. And, if I read between lines correctly, those satellites are in geosynchronous over their targets. The problem is that geosync orbit is prime real estate, and already well developed. Heck, there are already so many residents in that one little orbit that overcrowding is a real problem. Adding a few dozen big, secret satellites would be like holding a big, secret parade of elephants down the only street in a small town - people would tend to notice.

If you want exciting stories where people keep their clothes on, you've come to a good place. The artwork is skilled and varied, and there's nothing here to overwork a weak attention span. You could do worse - but you can do better, too.

//wiredweird

To me that's the question that this bok answers.
See, there are 1,001 people on the Global Frequency. You may not know who hey are, they may even be as close to you as possible without you even suspecting it.
Then one day, they receive a call and they may end up being mankind's last hope against something so big, secret or fast that there's no other conventional mean of intervention.
A worldwide cadre of super-experts, from sportsmen to physicists, from soldiers to magicians, from astronauts to historians.
There for us when we need them.
Brought together by the mysterious Miranda Zero and coordinated by young genius Aleph, they face terrorist warmongers, racial haters, drug-crazed wound-worshipping surgeons, pain-impervious hired killers, a direct attack on their base, and an out-of-control space war plan to reduce the human race to "manageable numbers".
Warren Ellis took a relatively simple idea (but so was Columbus' legendary egg, after all) and stretches it over 12 self-contained issues, drawn by 12 different artists, detailing 12 different Global Frequency adventures - the last 6 of which are collected here for your reading pleasure.
No wonder this has twice been optoned as a TV series and you should do yourself a favor and hunt down the beautiful leaked pilot of the first, while you're at it.
The stories are mostly fast paced and sometimes really skinned down to the action, but overall you have little atom bombs of information that takes along time to properly sink and digest and thoroughly enjoy. There's really so much here for you to drool over and ponder!
For comic freaks, there is also the unparelleled joy of having some very rare and very beautiful Simon Bisley pen-and-ink work, Chris Sprouse's crisp and clean and sexy line work (and don't forget: the guy's been working with Alan Moore for YEARS in a row!), Tomm Coker's appallingly underrated art (wasted on superheroes in his ealy days and fully blloming here), Lee Bermejo's awesome uniquely realistic brand of work, Jason Pearson action-packed pages (though he pulls a Cully Hamner here, instead of delivering his usual manga-influenced beauty - and while Cully is a great artist, Jason doing Cully is not really it), and Top Ten's Gene Ha (another America's Best Comics Alumni) deliverng his best work ever, a killer combination of his stellar art and billions of priceless design elements to up the ante and scale and scope of the already astounding final chapter.
This is an absolutely great pacakge, ot to be missed!

I really loved the first graphic novel (issues 1 - 6 of the series) and had high hopes for this one (issues 7 - 12). Unfortunately (and this is my review so take it with a small grain of salt) I feel it suffers from a lack of ideas or inspiration. Maybe it was just rushed. The first half of the series was interesting and diverse, treating the audience like adults, dropping us in a world with minimum of explanation and inferring knowledge. This series uses the old chestnut of "how part of us came to be" and shows us inside the belly of the Frequency. It feels a little tired. Warren Ellis is amazing (the Transmetropolitan series is my favourite) and this screams a little of him phoning ideas in. Still, it's better than a lot of the detritus about these days.

Global Frequency is an organization independent of any government that uses networking and the intellects of regular people to work together and prevent disasters. The stand alone stories are fun and varied. The different artists give each story a unique feel and all produce great artwork.

This volume doesn't work as well as the first one. It has good stories, but despite it being the ending of the series (for now, at least), they don't seem to build up to anything important. Planetary has a similar structure, but the narratives start to connect and build on each other by the end.

Still, entertaining stories, fun characters, and great artwork make it a worthy pickup.

If you can put aside a few plot holes with these books, (I.E.: not so secret secret agency, why are they getting called in the first place despite the top secret nature of most cases, the sheer implausibility of this kind of organization, etc...) and just read the stories you get a series of very interesting one issue singles. Warren Ellis is very good at creating a stand alone story within a single issue (see Planetary) but building on each issue. The two recurring characters of Miranda Zero and Aleph were immensely enjoyable to follow with their one-liners, and slick attitudes. This book, like many of Ellis' works have a plethora of quotable lines in the dialogue, one of which is the team catch phrase "You're on the Global Frequency." I dare you to not be compelled to say it at least once while reading either of these trades. Each issue has a different artist, which can be confusing for continuity, but cool in the sense the Global Frequency acted as a showcase for (then) up and coming artists' work. In fact many current big name artists can be found in these two trades. Do yourself a favor and get on the Global Frequency, you'll be glad you did.

"You're on the Global Frequency." After reading the first trade, Planet Ablaze, that line becomes real familiar. The setting is in the present with an alternate reality. There exists an organization called the Global Frequency that contains 1001 members. Their mission? To solve humanity's problems when no other agency will.

This trade is much better than the first. Ellis got the opportunity to take his idea further and offer some better stories. This trade is just like the first in that each issue has a different illustrator. You have a gruesome ultra-violent tale illustrated by Simon Bisley; my favorite story drawn by Lee Bermejo all in pencils; and a beautifully painted story by Gene Ha. You also get more background information on Aleph and how she came into the organization. I didn't care for the first six issues nearly as much as I have enjoyed the majority of this trade. There were a few stories that could have been better with different illustrators, but I was so ecstatic about the ones I loved that I was able to overlook them. If you have the first trade, then this is a must have.

If you don't want to buy the first trade, you don't really need to. Each issue is self contained and you can read them randomly if you wish and still follow the storyline.

This is the second graphic novel in a series of two, both written by Warren Ellis who is one of the top comic book writers today (Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Bill Willingham also get a nod). What I love so much about this series is the concept (there are 1001 agents in the world who at a moment's notice can get called for a mission) which allows each story to stand alone and each story to have a completely different atmosphere and format than the previous story. This series is also strongly rooted in reality, with the idea that all the science is "possible" and none of the agents are super powered.
This second volume is just as strong as the first one and also focuses on the only two recurring characters in a couple of stories. There is some great art - each style suited for the story - and top notch story telling. A must for any fan of Ellis or of comics.

The Global Frequency is a loose association of specialists, put together by a super spook named Miranda Zero and coordinated by a super genius named Aleph.

By using these experts in their particular fields they are able to quickly respond to threats all around the world that normal agencies couldn't even understand, let alone deal with.

Heaven's One Hundred is maybe the best story I have read set in Australia by an American publisher, who are generally completely hopeless at that sort of thing when it comes to comics.

Detonation Radio takes a slightly different approach. Firstly, Miranda Zero is kidnapped, and Aleph and others must organise an operation to get her back.

Then, Global Frequency operations is penetrated, and Aleph herself must perform some fieldwork to get out of the situation, with some advice fromt he outside.