Image Comics reviews 6/7/23 – The Ambassadors #6, The Magic Order Vol. 4 #5

The Ambassadors #6

Mark Millar has crafted a slew of highly entertaining titles since his collaboration with Netflix. At minimum, they’re all worth checking out while others are immensely refreshing and the start of something very special. Put Ambassadors in that latter category.

Through each issue of this volume, Millar — with a cadre of all-star artists — introduced readers to representatives from around the world who represent the best of the best. Choon-He devised a program to gift these select few abilities enabling them to channel three superpowers at a time. While they can access a wide array of powers the Ambassadors can’t duplicate their powers as Millar creates some safeguards in place to prevent them from being too powerful.

Choon-He’s ex-husband, Jin-Sung, has been amassing his own group of superpowered individuals though he could care less about their altruistic nature. His army consists of the richest dudes around willing to pay a fortune to have special abilities. Millar’s been building to this conflict since the first issue and the payoff was worth the setup.

A lot of the credit for that goes to the approach of using each issue to introduce and develop another member of the Ambassadors. Millar teased an occasional team-up before, but actually having all of the team together on one mission fighting against super powered rivals kinda has that Avengers feel to it. The personalities bounce off each other well and their engagement is consistent with how they were presented in their spotlight issues.

Joining Millar this issue is Matteo Scalera, who previously partnered with Millar on King of Spies. Scalera has a dynamic sense of portraying action sequences and was the right choice for by far the most action-packed installment in the series. Lee Loughridge delivers stellar colors that are very helpful in scenes where the costumes of the various Ambassadors are somewhat hard to distinguish.

There’s a great twist near the end that shows how much Millar understands the importance of diverse voices particularly in a team book.

This title has felt like Millar is really on to something with this premise and the concept was executed even better making for a thrilling adventure I’m anxious to see again in Volume Two.

Rating: 10 out of 10