Review: The Old Guard: Opening Fire

General Information

Title: Opening Fire
Author: Greg Rucka
Artist: Leandro Fernández
Series: The Old Guard #1
Publisher: Image Comics
ISBN: 9781534302402
My rating: ★★★★☆

 

About: Opening Fire follows a group of five soldiers who can't die. Making a living as mercenaries, they can never stay too long in one place. Until one day their secret becomes known to a powerful man who wants their gift of immortality for himself. But is it really a gift?

 

You may have heard of the Netflix movie The Old Guard (2020). I only found out it is based on a series of graphic novels after I'd watched it, and of course I wanted to read the source material too. I'm very happy I did!

The Old Guard is a story about life and death (or the lack thereof), greed, love and found family. It's sometimes sad, sometimes surprisingly deep, especially for a superhero story, and overall pretty badass. It's also quite dark and has lots of violence and swearing. This fit the story very well, but it's definitely adult stuff and I thought it's worth mentioning in case this isn't really your thing.

Most of the characters really grew on me. The main characters are all indviduals with interesting backstories, some of these were quickly told through flashbacks or memories. The lovestory between Nicky and Joe was the cutest sh*t I've read in a while, team leader Andy is a Queen™ and I have a very soft spot for Nile too. She's the baby (aka the newest recruit) of the group and may even have become my favorite. 

And while the villains didn't have any super exciting motives or traits, they were believably evil. The story developed nicely until it ends in the final confrontation/showdown between the good and the bad guys with lots and lots of action!

 The storyline itself is not something that hasn't been done before, but nevertheless it was very interesting. It's a superhero story (if you count immortality as a superpower) that deals with pretty dark and deep stuff aswell as the neverending debate whether it really is a desirable thing to live forever (or at least hundreds of years). The story is completed by the end of this volume, but there's room for more stories to come and some unanswered questions remain. I'll gladly pick up the sequel!

I found the art to be a bit clunky and bold, with thick lines and sharp features. It wasn't my most favorite style, but it fit the story and I got used to it. The colors come in a wide variety, but they're all muted or pastel in a way, with some very pretty color gradients and images sprawled across the page that are a pleasure to look at. There's not too much text so it's a rather quick read.

And for those of you who only know the movie, I'm glad to say it was a pretty well done adaptation that follows the storyline of this first volume very closely which is something I always appreciate. Even though I already knew the story, I still really enjoyed reading this and I'd recommend it if you like superhero stories and action but want deeper themes behind it! 

 Trigger warnings: Graphic violence, blood, gore, nudity, swearing