You could read Global Frequency without looking at the cover and know it's written by Warren Ellis.
His voice is that distinctive, his touch that inimitable.
"Back away from the germs, toerag features," one character tells a would-be biological terrorist.
No one in comics writes dialogue like that, not when the industry measures success by how well you write characters created more than 40 years ago.
And Global Frequency has the Ellis stamp all over it.
When there's no hope left, Global Frequency is called in. Led by the mysterious Miranda Zero, the worldwide group of 1,001 people solves the unanswerable dilemmas.
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A black hole in San Francisco?
They know how to stop it.
A human cyborg on the rampage?
They know how to stop him without a nuclear bomb.
Armed with super high-tech phones, the various experts and operatives who make up Global Frequency seemingly know everything and can do anything.
The Frequency communication hub is run by Aleph, who keeps people connected with satellite phones so the infectious disease expert can tell the urban thrasher agent running through London how to deactivate a biological bomb.
The 12-issue series is written by Ellis, with different artists on each issue. The stories are self-contained, and each artist brings his own sensibility.
But rather than being inconsistent, the use of varying art styles helps create each story's distinct feel. This is episodic comics at their best. Each 22-page issue tells a fully contained story packed with Ellis' trademark attention to the unexpected.
Are they deep character studies? No. They're action-focused, mad idea-filled plots with fantastic visuals and ultra-cool gadgets.
Global Frequency would be right at home on the big screen. It was optioned last year by the WB for a midseason replacement, but the network decided not to pick it up. Last word was that Ellis and the Frequency's production company were free to shop the pilot around to other networks.
Here's to hoping that leads somewhere. With "Hellboy," "Sin City" and even "Spider-Man 2," the mainstream entertainment industry looks like it's finally figuring out how to translate comics to live action.
The cookie-cutter makeup of primetime television could use just as much of a shock to its system as Global Frequency gave to the mostly homogenous world of comics.
The first six issues are collected in Global Frequency: Planet Ablaze, published by WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics.
