The Shield Vol. 1: Kicking Down the Door

The Red Circle

by J. Michael Straczynski, Eric Trautmann, Marco Rudy (Illustrator)

Lieutenant Joe Higgins was dying in the dirt of a battlefield in Afghanistan when they whisked him away to a top-secret facility and saved his life with nanotechnology so experimental they couldn't dare to use it on a living man. Now Higgins has been enlisted to a whole new mission - to be the public face of the American fighting man as the patriotic Shield. But today's grueling military battles test the limits of patriotism and the limits of the technology that keeps him alive. And the shocking secret behind that technology may be too much for his bullet-riddled heart to bear.

This new collection reinvents the 1940s super-hero -- the first patriotic super-hero of the era -- bringing him into the 20th century, with modern-day issues he must address.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

160 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2010

About the author

Joseph Michael Straczynski is an American filmmaker and comic book writer. He is the founder of Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Studio JMS and is best known as the creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998) and its spinoff Crusade (1999), as well as the series Jeremiah (2002–2004) and Sense8 (2015–2018). He is the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison.
Straczynski wrote the psychological drama film Changeling (2008) and was co-writer on the martial arts thriller Ninja Assassin (2009), was one of the key writers for (and had a cameo in) Marvel's Thor (2011), as well as the horror film Underworld: Awakening (2012), and the apocalyptic horror film World War Z (2013). From 2001 to 2007, Straczynski wrote Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man, followed by runs on Thor and Fantastic Four. He is the author of the Superman: Earth One trilogy of graphic novels, and he has written Superman, Wonder Woman, and Before Watchmen for DC Comics. Straczynski is the creator and writer of several original comic book series such as Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, Dream Police, and Ten Grand through Joe's Comics.
A prolific writer across a variety of media and former journalist, Straczynski is the author of the autobiography Becoming Superman (2019) for HarperVoyager, the novel Together We Will Go (2021) for Simon & Schuster, and Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (2021) for Benbella Books. In 2020 he was named Head of the Creative Council for the comics publishing company Artists, Writers and Artisans.
Straczynski is a long-time participant in Usenet and other early computer networks, interacting with fans through various online forums (including GEnie, CompuServe, and America Online) since 1984. He is credited as being the first TV producer to directly engage with fans on the Internet and to allow viewer viewpoints to influence the look and feel of his show. Two prominent areas where he had a presence were GEnie and the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some people seem to forget that The Shield actually pre-dated Captain America, and was a moderate hit in the Golden Age of comics. One reason why The Shield has been mostly forgotten is that after that, the character kept getting rebooted, but with so many changes and in so many different styles that there was no continuity. I think even Wikipedia missed a version in their history of the character.
This version could have worked. Treating a costumed hero as a military figure, rather than a regular superhero, is what the modern Captain America movie did at its start, and the idea can work. Sadly, one of the worst characters of that period of DC comics, Magog, got dragged into the story woven through this book, as did the relaunch of a weak version of another Archie superhero, The Jaguar. So, when the story finally gets around to including supervillains, it just isn't all that exciting. Any story that can make Gorilla Grodd boring just isn't trying very hard.
That said, I'm sad that this relaunch fizzled, because both Straczynski and Trautmann looked like they had a handle on the character, but didn't have time to develop him as a character, or that character as a person.

[Arthur Chappell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very Captain America fused in with Iron Man, with a lame Six Million Dollar Bionic Man origin story and a central character who does little beyond his patriotic duty, with no real chance to understand him as a human character.

He is too indestructible ever to really be threatened by any opponent. A nice commentary that superheroes should take on national / international war duties rather than chasing costume-criminals in the cities. Generally bland and derivative.

Arthur Chappell

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nearly a 4 star review with part of the problem being the series suddeningly being canceled. JMS rebooted 4 characters for DC Comics with The Shield being a shot at a patriotic hero (the archetype being Marvel's Captain America). Where this series worked well, much like Ed Brubaker's Captain America stories, is in the solid action movie style story telling. Where the series showed promise was in the slight injection of modern politics, i.e. dealing with true world devasting WMDs and the Shield and his team's mission being to stop the deployment of said weapons. What was overlooked was in how many ways JMS stole from Mark Waid's interpretation of the character.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

DC's attempts to bring back languishing Red Circle characters takes stage here in their revitalization of the Shield. A mix of Captain America and Iron Man, Army Lieutenant Joe Higgins finds himself reborn following an insurgent RPG attack. Outfitted with a nanofiber armor to keep him alive, Higgins is the newest super-soldier out to defend American interests. While the inclusion of DC characters like Magog, Grodd, and the Great Ten tie this series to the pre-DCnU proper, it still feels like a poor pastiche of Marvel's iconic characters. An okay read, but I'll stick with my original shield from Cap.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there's some nice ideas here, in the end it feels like Captain America filtered through the DC Universe and the politics of the 2008 election.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weak attempt to create a Diet Captain America. There's honestly no other way to call it.