The first issue of Ron Marz and Kenneth Rocafort’s Velocity miniseries delivers an effective blend of action and exposition. Appropriately for a book about a speedster, it hits the ground running, and while the main conflict doesn’t really begin until the end of the issue, there’s plenty going on in the opening chapter.

The setup for “Decoys” is simple: A mad scientist infects Velocity and her teammates with a virus that will kill them within an hour, and she’s the only one who might be able to stop it.

Wait, Who?

A bit of background for those not familiar with Top Cow’s resident speedster: Carin Taylor is a member of Cyberforce, a team made up of former (unwilling) test subjects of Cyberdata. Cybernetic implants give her super-speed, and a layer of Kevlar under her skin gives her some degree of invulnerability.

The comic is actually quite new-reader friendly. You get a good sense of Velocity’s personality (snarky, tends to get ahead of herself), powers (runs fast, jumps fast, dismantles killer cyborgs fast…but vibrating through walls and into other dimensions is right out), and the basics of her origin. The villain’s motives are established clearly. There’s even a page in the back with short profiles of Velocity and her teammates.

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