It should be no surprise that Top Cow’s newest comic, Genius Cartel, is addressing another aspect of the military industrial complex. The comic focuses on Destiny Ajaye, who at the age of 17 is responsible for ending the siege on Los Angeles as she has united all of the Los Angeles gangs. With this new power in her hands she has agreed to surrender herself to the government agency the Madrassa Institute in exchange for her people to avoid being targeted or prosecuted for the actions they have taken during this conflict. Once Destiny arrives at the Madrassa Institute it becomes clear that she, with others, are honing their skills so that the U.S. government can use them in covert operations around the world. The only problem is that Destiny does not want to do the government’s killing, yet.
The Good:
The comic immediately establishes Destiny as a strong female character as it is revealed that she was responsible for ending the siege on Los Angeles by uniting all of the gangs. Rather than having her character go downhill from this point the comic reaffirms her character by showing her excellent leadership abilities as she voluntary surrenders herself in exchange for her people’s safety. This shows that she understands what her people fought for and how to make sure that it is achieved and that the sacrifices that were made were not wasted. Furthermore, it shows that she has the ability to make calculated decisions that involve sacrifices that involve other people and herself, thus making her a perfect person to carry out covert operations. Following her surrender, Destiny enrolled in the Madrassa Institute, which is a training facility for people with natural gifts that the government wants to use to eliminate threats from society. As a result, we begin to see how the tactical side of Destiny works and differs from her classmates. In particular, a scenario is presented where there are hostages being held by a terrorist group rather than thinking about saving them she chooses to kill all the people involved. This is due to her realizing that the 2 hostages have already been compromised and that the enemy has extracted the data; therefore killing them will prevent the most amount of harm. As all this is occurring, Destiny meets another student, Roger, who she begins to develop feelings for as the two share similar ideologies. Due to Destiny not wanting to cooperate with eliminating foreign threats, the head of the Madrassa Institute is forced to kill Roger as a means to get her to cooperate with them. Ultimately, Roger’s death makes Destiny want to cooperate with the government and eliminate foreign threats as it will be a way for her to track down who killed the guy she loved. All throughout this issue we see Destiny begin to transition from the streets of Los Angeles to becoming a cold blood covert operation killer.
The Bad:
The comic is confusing as it follows a weird time line as it starts in the present day in Mexico but then goes back 18 months to set up the back story of Destiny. Every few pages those months become closer to present day as we see Destiny’s situations change. This style tends to leave holes in Destiny’s backstory as many things are not explained clearly and succinctly resulting in confusion and key information being brushed over that could make her story stronger.
The Verdict:
Genius Cartel is a different type of military complex comic as it focuses on Destiny Ajaye, an ordinary young woman of color, who happens to be one of the world’s greatest military minds, and her interactions with society and government. While this comic does provide a new perspective through the character of Destiny about the military it also is riddled with several problems. In particular, establishing a strong backstory as to who she is. As a result, the comic is not the best military complex story currently out there, but it does bring an element of diversity into this genre.
