The Horse, a super villain getting out of prison has his chauffer drive him to meet the trio of super villains who have been terrorizing the town while he was away. His mission: Not to chastise them, but to enlist them in evaluating the local hero, the Navigator. The Horse see whether the hero is worth keeping around any longer. It seems The Navigator’s standards have been slipping.
So begins Translucid, Chondra Echert and Claudio Sanchez’s six-issue miniseries on heroism, villainy, and the line between the two. In this first issue, the two are playing with the time-honored tradition of making the villain and hero almost-friends. The Horse may be threatening to eliminate The Navigator if he fails to measure up to the villain’s tests, but he is taking risks for him and showing concern—odd concern, but still concern—and the hero reciprocates, claiming The Horse is, “The closest thing to a friend I’ve ever had.” Flashbacks show a young boy planning out his future costume, eager and innocent, contrasting with the present odd situation.
Metcalfe keeps the coloring on the fluorescent side, even before The Navigator starts hallucinating, effectively making all points of view and claims subject to questioning. Only in the flashbacks, where the boy is peacefully at work, is the coloring kept to muted and in the more usual spectrum. Translucid also blurs the hero-villain line in the choice of costume. While The Horse favors the tailored pinstriped suits that so often signal villainy, his chosen mask is that of a chess piece—the white knight. The Navigator’s costume, meanwhile, is more robotic than knightly; he may be fully armored like a knight, but he also favors an expressionless mask with huge, glowing eyes.
Translucid gives the villain a reason for psychoanalyzing the hero, and it gives the reader a chance to take another look at the hero-villain dynamic. I am hoping the policeman (chief of police?) we see briefly will get to play a role as well.
Write: Chondra Echert, Claudio Sanchez
Artist: Daniel Bayliss