Velocity #1 is the latest comic to be released under Top Cow Studios Pilot Season program. Unlike the latest Pilot Season comics it actually won the Pilot Season completion back in 2007 and now it’s ready to branch out on its own. So how does the superhero comic fair? 

Velocity revolves around Carin Taylor who looks like, acts like and sounds like your normal girl…except she has a cybernetic chip in her body that amplifies her natural speed to enable her to run at about Mach 7. She also has experimental Kevlar under her skin to reduce the heat friction from running so fast. So Carin isn’t actually that normal after all, in fact she’s a superhero who is part of the Cyberforce with other cybernetic heroes.  

Velocity #1 shows why Carin Taylor and the Velocity story was one of the Pilot Season winners. The comic moves at such an incredible pace, like Carin, that so much information has been poured into one issue and yet you don’t feel overwhelmed by all the information. Ron Marz has created a delicate balance between keeping the story moving along quickly, which is what you’d expect from a super fast hero, and keeping it engaging and easy to follow, not an easy task.  

Carin finds herself the target of a mad scientist, the only kind who seems to appear in comics, who is somewhat fixated on her and his fixation means bad news for not only Carin but the Cyberforce as well. The narrative takes an interesting approach with the story back tracking and also showing what is going to happen in the future, but these elements are integrated into the story well so they aren’t confusing. 

What really helps to make Velocity an enjoyable read is the narration from Taylor. She sounds like a normal young person in the way she talks. It’s a very casual, matter of fact tone like, for instance, the opening pages where she states “I run fast. Actually, I do pretty much everything fast. Dismantle killer cyborgs fast…run fast…jump fast…dodge energy blasts fast. Fast.”  She sounds very much like “Yeah I’m a hero now, deal with it because I have” and that’s very much how Carin Taylor is portrayed. The mad scientist is typically mad and his fixation on Carin is almost disturbing, perfect for a villain.  

The artwork is solid and I’m really digging the almost sketch book style. There are a lot of pencil lines visible in the artwork but it doesn’t give a look of being unfinished. At time the design of Velocity was a bit odd. She looked quite young almost childish, like in the cinema panel, and then at other times she was this gorgeous, full figured woman.  Maybe they were trying to show that she’s innocent and not fully come to grips with her role as a hero yet? Meanwhile the action looked good with Carin largely fighting robots that looked pretty impressive and had a wide variety of weapons, which kept things fresh.  

Overall Velocity #1 was a good first issue. It introduces you to the character and sets up a really interesting story (which I didn’t detail too much for fear of spoilers) in a way that’s friendly towards first time readers (in the Cyberforce universe), has some solid artwork and even a sneak peek at the upcoming Artifact series.