Being a double agent isn't all it's cracked up to be - especially when the good guys don't know you're on their side.
"Sleeper" is the tale of Holden Carver, a secret agent with no one to report to. His mentor and contact, John Lynch, lies in a coma while Holden dirties it up with a global secret organization.
Holden used to work for International Operations, a covert government intelligence agency. When the rest of Holden's team is killed in a mission gone bad, Lynch sees the perfect opportunity to insert an undercover agent into a group run by the one guy he doesn't have a line on.
So Holden appears to go rogue and, as planned, is recruited by Tao, an ice-cold enigma who runs a clandestine group of metahumans - people with superpowers.
But even with that setup, this is no Superman comic. Despite the occasional costume and codename, the book features few characteristics of the superhero genre. "Sleeper" isn't a book about heroes flying through the sky, saving the day. It's about spies and criminals.
The book's dark tone is brought alive by Sean Phillips' gritty art. The film-noir feel is further brought out by the dark-toned color palette and heavy use of shadow. His storytelling is crisp and clear, and while it would probably benefit from lighter tones in the colors here and there, Phillips perfectly captures the moody feel of the story.
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Holden is isolated in more ways than one. While no one knows he's really a good guy, he's also cut off from feeling just about everything other than a numbing despair.
That last government mission of his? His team was sent to recover an unknown alien artifact - one that destroyed everything it touched. But when Holden took hold of the artifact, it bonded with him. Instead of destroying not him, it demolishes his entire life.
The artifact keeps him from feeling anything. Broken bones, bullet holes, nothing gets through to Holden. He can only feel pleasure if it's mixed in with some pain.
It's an interesting superpower - if you want to call it that - for him to have. As a double agent left out in the cold, Holden is truly alone, a feeling exacerbated by his inability to feel. Combined with his guilt over his team's death, Holden moves through life a torn man, hating what he does and despising the man who put him there, but still feeling obligated to fulfill his mission as a spy.
The series is set in the publisher's shared universe, but "Sleeper" doesn't require readers to be able to recite 30 years of superhero continuity. Lynch and Tao are figures superhero readers may recognize, but the book is careful to give readers all the information they need, a welcome change in the often incestuous superhero genre.
Sleeper: Out in the Cold collects the first half of "Sleeper," a 12-issue series written by Ed Brubaker. Publisher Wildstorm Productions will release issue seven of "Sleeper Season Two," the second 12-issue series, on Dec. 22.
