Hardcore, Vol. 1

Hardcore #1-5

by Andy Diggle, Alessandro Vitti (Contributor), Adriano Lucas (Contributor)

From the minds of Robert Kirkman & Marc Silvestri!

Imagine being able to take over the body of anyone on Earth in order to track down a rogue nuke or assassinate a dictator. Sound crazy? Not for Agent Drake and the Hardcore Program. They can turn anyone�your neighbor, your co-worker, your spouse-into a human drone to get to targets normal soldiers can't.

Drake is the best soldier Hardcore has to offer� until he's stranded in a body with only 72 hours to discover who's hijacked the Program. But who can you trust when your enemy can change their appearance as easy as someone changes a shirt?

Andy Diggle (THIEF OF THIEVES, Losers) and Alessandro Vitti (Secret Warriors) present a new Skybound Original that shows you how to save the world without getting your hands dirty.

Collects HARDCORE #1-5.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Graphic Novels

112 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2019

About the author

Andy Diggle is a British comic book writer and former editor of 2000 AD. He is best known for his work on The Losers,Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Adam Strange and Silent Dragon at DC Comics and for his run on Thunderbolts and Daredevil after his move to Marvel.

In 2013 Diggle left writing DC's Action Comics and began working with Dynamite Entertainment, writing a paranormal crime series Uncanny. He is also working on another crime series with his wife titled Control that is set to begin publishing in 2014.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

CIA agents remotely mind-control people in foreign lands close to their targets like human drones to assassinate them safely from the comfort of US soil. The programme is called Hardcore but its disgruntled creator wants revenge on the government for ousting him from his own project. “Mentally unbalanced”? Pish posh! Time to prove them wrong by hijacking a nuke and blowing it up in front of the President! Trapped inside his latest drone body, Agent Drake must make it back to America within 72 hours or his real body will die.

Andy Diggle and Alessandro Vitti’s first volume of Hardcore is your average mindless actioner. The characters are archetypes - action hero, woman sidekick, bad guy, etc. - and the dialogue is equally disposable and forgettable. But Diggle maintains an appropriately fast pace to the narrative with several entertainingly OTT set pieces so it was never dull.

The setup is original and it’s always clear what’s going on and why - the answer usually being ‘cos it’s awesome, bro! Vitti’s art is fine, Diggle’s writing is fine - Hardcore is unmemorable and average by today’s action story standards but it’s also perfectly fine by those same standards. It’s the comics equivalent of movies like John Wick and Crank: silly and dumb but it knows what it is and isn’t trying to be anything else. Hardcore bruh!

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hardcore is based on an interesting premise. That the government can shoot an individual with nanites and then take over their body and pilot it like a drone. Unfortunately outside the opening scene, this isn't explored at all. It quickly turns into a B-grade 80's action film about a guy trying to get back to base before his body is killed. It feels hackneyed along the lines of a Stephen Seagal film. I'm also not a fan of Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri just coming up with ideas and then have other creators actually make the book. At that point, you're basically one of the big two, not the haven for creators Image has become.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly but fun. Quite good art.

[Bárbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super fun and fast paced! A great mix of sci-fi and action!

[Trike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly standard sci-fi action stuff about using nanotechnology to take over someone else’s body in order to infiltrate enemies, which is a cool idea. It has a real 80s action flick vibe to it, which isn’t all bad. Personally I would’ve preferred something a bit more suave and nuanced, more espionage than Action Jackson histrionics, but this is what it is. Sometimes you just have to embrace the red meat and potatoes-ness of it all, y’know?

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

A high-concept action comic, where the idea is matched by the energy of its narrative, only to come up against common sense. In this ultra-high-tech weapon, people like our hero, Agent Drake, can be transposed into the body of A N Other to operate them like meat puppets and assassinate people on the QT. Trying to off the typical Latin American baddy, he finds that the bloke who invented the whole program has stolen it back, y'know, just out of purely destructive, bite-your-nose-to-spite-your-face, revenge reasons. Reasons that would never exist in the real world, but never mind. Cue a three-day race for Drake (and his token gutsy gal) to get back to base, and get back into his real body, or else it's limbo time, and nobody is talking dancing.

There are few people who could fail with such a race against time drama, and Diggle is not one of them. He does try at times – cars defying gravity a la The A Team and Dukes of Hazzard, and so on – but is generally on good form. The pages look nice, too. I'm just worried about one thing, which I think is not so much down to Diggle but rather the book's initiator, Robert Kirkman. It's the second book I've read in a row with his name and stamp on it, and the second in a row to show a flippant use of nuclear explosions. Now, he's never been the best comics creator, but if this is an indication that he's turning into 1990s James Cameron, then we just have to hope he recovers soon. As it is, this was fun enough for me to want to return for the follow-on, which I certainly didn't say about his self-written effort before this.

Three and a half stars.

[Alex Sarll]

A secret government programme which tags people with an implant so that their bodies can be remotely controlled: there are all sorts of practical problems with this idea, especially given the implant is fired from a sniper rifle, but you can see the potential for an interesting story, playing on the ethical grey areas as the agent gets increasingly unsure about the targets and tactics. That's an interesting angle which this book takes determined action to avoid, instead ticking off every tedious thriller cliché it can lay its hands on. And it doesn't help that the creators on this book (Diggle and Vitti) aren't even working on their own idea (which, such as it is, comes from Kirkman and Silvestri), something I always feel undermines the whole point of Image. Hardcore will almost certainly become a straight-to-streaming action film, and you should avoid that too.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another one of those comic books that's basically a movie script with illustrations. It's a fast paced action thriller where tech that allows the hacking and remote controlling of humans is almost immediately co-opted. There are a number of twists and turns, some unexpected moments, and an ending that isn't particularly satisfying (or coherent).
There are some good ideas and the art isn't bad. Drake is pretty bland as a lead, though Diggle does provide enough time with the villain to make him someone you root against. Secondary characters are pretty one-dimensional, but considering the whole book took me about 20 minutes to read, that's not a big surprise.
I could definitely see this as a movie, although I think it probably should be a one-and-done; the opening left for a second volume of the series felt like a cheat.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve ever read the Vertigo series The Losers, you know that Andy Diggle has a love of action movies; it feels like if he wasn’t writing comics, action cinema would be his home. Although The Losers did make its way to the big screen, it’s interesting that none of his other creator-owned work have gone through that transition, including his latest Image comic, Hardcore.

Please click here for my full review.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review submitted to Diamond Book Distributors for possible publication.
Review will be posted here after publication OR not being selected.

[Timo · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fast paced piece of fun this was. Art was a bit dodgy here and there, but still good faced paced fun with characters saying stupid manly things.
More please.

[david Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many years ago I read a single issue of hardcore a one shot that ended on a cliffhanger and left me wanting more thankfully they decided to finish the story and it was worth waiting all these years to get the next part. Hopefully don't need to wait as long for the follow-up

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story discusses the ethical and moral implications of a new brand of assassination. A device developed by the Hardcore program enables main character Drake to access the body of a subject using remote-controlled nanites implanted beforehand. The program uses this ability to carry out missions against criminal organizations. There is little focus on the dilemma, but it's there. If you control another body while killing someone, who is to blame? The controlled or the controller?

The DoD has sent Bonnie Price to evaluate the Hardcore program. She is in reality working with Markus, the creator of the program who was fired after failing psychiatric evaluations. She kills Drake's colleagues and allows Markus to take control of their facility. Drake is already logged into a mission and is now fighting against time. On the one hand, Markus and Bonnie are ready to kill him as soon as he exits the machine. On the other hand, the nanites that enable his machine biodegrade in 72 hours. If he is still connected, his brain is destroyed.

While looking for a way to save his real body, Drake is in control of Esteban's, a man working for a general of a banana republic. The general's wife Lupe is having an affair with Esteban and the general knows about it, meaning that he has to first get away from his men and their big guns. Meanwhile, a team working for Markus steals a nuclear bomb they use to kill the US president.

With Lupe still in tow, Drake makes his way to his superiors who reluctantly greenlight his plan to face Markus with a bomb strapped to his body. There's a mighty complicated fight scene where first Drake has the upper hand, then Markus, then Drake again. Markus had the place rigged to blow up, rather than have his invention be used without his input. Thankfully, Drake has enough time to return to his body and be saved from the blast by the near-indestructable device itself.

Upon exiting the Hardcore device, Drake claims that Markus is still alive, so this thing is not over yet.

[Kole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like watching a silly violent 80's action movie, all action and little plot. Death and destruction but little meaning and no intentional humor makes this a dry read. It's incredibly fast paced and is a quick read but I didn't find much to it. If you want a fun, action-packed read where you can turn your brain off then this might be worth a quick read but I would not recommend it. Art is fine throughout for a graphic novel but the paneling occasionally makes for a confusing read.

Story 2/5
Art: 3/5

Overall: 2/5
Not recommended

[Kristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐ artwork
⭐⭐ story

An action based comic about a machine that the main character uses to take over another person's body in order to assassinate targets.

Much violence for the sake of violence, but then I guess it is a comic about assassinations, so I guess it should be expected to some extent.

I think the comic has potential, but I'd like to see more of a back story.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a simple enough premise, a soldier bio hacks a target and controls their body for 72 hrs. The execution and plot are bare bones, it's a race against the clock with twists, and it would make a interesting B movie. Art by Vitti is brilliant, I remember his stuff from Red Lanterns, and it carries the plot. Hopefully the second vol is better.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardcore, volume 1, Andy Diggle.
Cool series ****
#1 - Nanotechnology that can be implanted into an unsuspecting suitable host with the intent of turning them into an Assassin.
#2 - "We're BLOWN! Get us OUTTA here!"
#3 - "I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU KNEW HOW TO FLY A PLANE--!"
#4 - Time is ticking, options are running out!
#5 - "Get your people CLEAR -- this place is about to BLOW!"

[Sebastian Song · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely action movie material except the intensity seldom move beyond the third gear. A pity as there's so much promise.

[Jonathan Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good sci-fi shoot’em up! But seriously I gotta find the next volume!! Good ending

[Will Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre story about a man using random people as assassin drones. Not much new in this.

[Katherine C. Hirstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Individual issue reviews: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5

Total review score: 2.2