Review of "Red One, Undercover Part 1," Image Comics

 Review of

Red One, Undercover Part 1, Image Comics

Five out of five stars

A dangerously divided America

 It is 1977, Jimmy Carter is President of the United States and he is working hard to get the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks  (S.A.L.T.) treaty passed by Congress and accepted  by the American people. There is a powerful and radical religious movement in the United States that is in favor of extreme violence against those they consider the enemy. That group includes people that believe in the principles of the most limited censorship and are perceived as communist sympathizers and supporters of all forms of birth control.

 There is a man known as the Carpenter that engages in a violent vendetta against the enemies of the religious groups. Into all this mix there is a female agent of the Soviet Union known as Red One that is operating in the United States. She receives her orders directly from the leader of the Soviet Union and her goal is to do what she can to help President Carter convince the American public to support the S.A.L.T. treaty.

 Red One battles the Carpenter in order to save the life of a young, pregnant woman. She also stands up against a group of men armed with boards intent on doing severe damage to people planning on making a movie they don’t approve of. There is also a woman running for Governor of California with a platform based on the radical religious movement. Like most politicians, underneath the veneer of religious wonderfulness, she is ruthless and willing to violate any of the religious premises she claims to support.

 This is a great story about an unusual super soldier set in very difficult times in the United States. The country appears to be on the verge of a violent takeover by religious extremists and ironically, an agent of the other superpower works to prevent that. It is an instance of the adage that many times the greatest enemies of a country are those that claim to be the most ardent patriots.