Decorum #1 is written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Mike Huddleston.
The preview description of Decorum #1 says: There are many assassins in the known universe. This is the story of the most well-mannered one. “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what knife you use.”
Not exactly the most informative of summaries. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. After reading Decorum #1, I cannot tell you what this story is going to be about except that it involves a very skilled assassin who possibly has telekinetic abilities. I’m not sure if the weapon is special or she is special or both. What I can tell you is that Imogen Smith-Morley has incredible posture to go along with her fighting skill.
However, we don’t see Imogen for quite some time Instead, we are introduced to this future following a brief description of what happened in the past. If you read Hickman’s House of X and/or Powers of X, then this format will be familiar to you. It’s kind of his thing – which isn’t bad by any means, its just you don’t usually get a novel prose style prologue to begin a comic. Then we are shown what looks very similar to when the Europeans first came to the Americas and began colonization, we even see what looks to be Native Americans. However, the Europeans are robotic creatures and the Native Americans have alien-esque weaponry and ride pterosaurs. It makes for a very cool war scene but there’s almost no words and many of the words we do see are in a not real language.
Then we meet Neha, a courier. Courier jobs are much more dangerous in this world than ours but apparently don’t pay much better. Upon agreeing to deliver a very important package, she arrives (one minute late, accordinly to Imogen) to give it to Imogen who has been accusing Doman D’Vorth V of betraying the Syndicate Major. So all that happens, I skipped the details, but this is how we arrive on Imogen, our titular protagonist.
I like the characters and the world(s) Hickman has created, I just wish I understood them more. That being said, Huddleston’s art is phenomenal in this. I absolutely love the color contrasts, the style contrasts, how he shifts from watercolor to standard comic inks, and there’s the black and white with splashes of colors on certain characters/objects – it all looks so amazing together.
OVERALL SCORE: 8 / 10
Make sure you pick up a copy of Decorum #1 at your local comic shop and Comixology!
Happy reading!
