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Black Badge #2
Black Badge Vol. 2
A top-secret, elite branch of boy scouts is sent on their deadliest mission yet -- and must combat opposing scout troops along the way.
The Black Badges are a top-secret branch of boy scouts, tasked with covert missions that no adult could ever undertake. But little do they know, their troop is not alone…
Sent to a private island off the north shore of Oahu, the team must battle against other elite scouts for the Badge of Champions in a gruelling, dangerous competition that will test their skills like never before, all the while investigating the disappearance of their former friend.
The Eisner Award-nominated creative team behind Grass Kings - New York Times bestselling writer Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT) and illustrators Tyler Jenkins (Peter Panzerfaust) and Hilary Jenkins – reunite for a no holds barred look at the modern world through the eyes of the children tasked with cleaning up the mess made by the people they trust most.
The Black Badges are a top-secret branch of boy scouts, tasked with covert missions that no adult could ever undertake. But little do they know, their troop is not alone…
Sent to a private island off the north shore of Oahu, the team must battle against other elite scouts for the Badge of Champions in a gruelling, dangerous competition that will test their skills like never before, all the while investigating the disappearance of their former friend.
The Eisner Award-nominated creative team behind Grass Kings - New York Times bestselling writer Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT) and illustrators Tyler Jenkins (Peter Panzerfaust) and Hilary Jenkins – reunite for a no holds barred look at the modern world through the eyes of the children tasked with cleaning up the mess made by the people they trust most.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 27, 2020
“Black Badge: Boys Reconnoiter Organization
Always prepared (For sabotage, demolitions, assassinations, and global upheaval)”
Black Badge, the new series by Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins, has a fun premise: Boy Scouts can earn a kind of black op badge called the Black Badge when recruited by the feds for a series of Top Secret missions. Why scouts?
“Your youth makes you invisible. Your cunning is unexpected. And your heart is not yet jaded.”
So it’s hard to talk about this second volume without “spoiling” because the very turn it takes makes you rethink the whole series completely, so, sorry, but here goes: All the clearly fictional/thriller fun black ops in the first volume (blowing up a building in North Korea, freeing a spy in Afghanistan, and so on) take a shift here back to an actual historical event, the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the real terrorists are, in this alternative history rendition, overcome by a set of girls, Pink Badges, whom we had just met at the Rainbow Jamboree (bringing together a variety of colored secret ops badges).
Then we also flash back to William Hurst* (who created the Black Badge organization of off-the-grid scouts) being told by his wife that the organization is missing just one thing: Girls. When Hurst responds that he can’t imagine what uses girls would have for the aggressively subversive skills featured by Black Badges, his wife responds: “Oh, I think they might find them useful at some point.”
Then we flash to contemporary images of women re: #metoo, Cool, frame-breaking, meta-moment, I thought.
So the apparently very boy Black Badge comic series turns feminist!.
An so what happens when at the Rainbow Camporee competition the Pink Badges discover that one of the Black Badge boys is a girl who finds the whole pink designation lame and condescending and she wants none of it)?
,
Some random things I like:
--All the redacted texts that open each chapter/issue, as these are now common sources of dis/missing information today
--Weaponized harmonicas designed to put an audience to sleep
--The Rainbow Jamboree competition bears some resemblance to The Hunger Games as food and supplies are dropped to the various colored badge teams as they proceed to the top of the dormant? volcano.
-- Pink Badges give out (Girl Scout) cookies to the Black badges, but these are not Thin Mints, but ones with Truth Serum
*If, as I suspect, Rod Brown is correct and Kindt has misspelled William (Randolph) Hearst, that’s sloppy and maybe ultimately confusing.
May 16, 2020
Black Badge is like the special ops of the Boy Scouts. Want to get your Espionage Badge or the First Kill Badge? You can do that here. The Rainbow Jamboree begins, dropping the various troops on a tropical island in a Hunger Games scenario. The first team to make it to the top of the volcano moves on to the next level. Interspersed are a lot of missions the teams have completed over the years, each troop having a different specialty. This is a really fun book.
Tyler Jenkin's sloppy pencils work for me most of the time. There's certainly times where I can't tell who's who, but overall it's OK.
Tyler Jenkin's sloppy pencils work for me most of the time. There's certainly times where I can't tell who's who, but overall it's OK.
August 6, 2020
The story continues, but how long can it go?
January 18, 2021
I really liked the first volume of this book, so I was hopeful this would be another great volume. Unfortunately I did find this one to be a bit... "less" then the first volume.
If I had to guess at what it is that I didn't like as much as the first one, I would say its probably the pacing. There are times were Kindt jumps ahead not just a few steps, but many, so that it almost feels like maybe we are missing an issue here or there. And while I know there is alot of ground to cover, so to speak, I did feel like it took away from my overall enjoyment of the book.
The art is once again handled by Tyler Jenkins, whose messy pencils go great with the subject matter of the book. Nothing is what it seems and everything is very "sketchy", so I feel that Jenkins captures this uneasy feeling well with his art style.
Ultimately I would say this is a good volume, with alot of setup about a secret troop. Hopefully Kindt is setting us up for a good payoff in the third one.
If I had to guess at what it is that I didn't like as much as the first one, I would say its probably the pacing. There are times were Kindt jumps ahead not just a few steps, but many, so that it almost feels like maybe we are missing an issue here or there. And while I know there is alot of ground to cover, so to speak, I did feel like it took away from my overall enjoyment of the book.
The art is once again handled by Tyler Jenkins, whose messy pencils go great with the subject matter of the book. Nothing is what it seems and everything is very "sketchy", so I feel that Jenkins captures this uneasy feeling well with his art style.
Ultimately I would say this is a good volume, with alot of setup about a secret troop. Hopefully Kindt is setting us up for a good payoff in the third one.
January 6, 2021
3.5 stars
April 1, 2021
This series is darkly humorous. I like it.
August 31, 2019
Rejoice! I'm thrilled about this comics. The art maybe isn't what I prefer, it seems wild and free, slopy, cheap and shabby. But it does not feel amateurish. So for some of you, it could maybe be the art you like. And I must appreciate even if the art does not look like I like, it shows what I need to see. The scenes are great, it works both as art and as the medium. And I must appreciate that, even if by a far chance the Black Badge won't take a place at my top ten best-looking comics. But what I appreciate is the story. The first few issues worked good for me, then Jamboree hit ant it looked it can go very sideways. But Kind didn't give the wheel to Jesus, took the story as an experienced racer and drifted it back in the right direction. And in the end the story (kind of) makes sense, it's finished properly, satisfying, very interesting and intense. Yes, the main premise of somehow love triangle and betrayal and so is classic mechanics of many stories, it fits here well. I must confirm that Matt Kind is a proper author with great taste in interesting themes and somehow fresh storytelling. Even for the chance that his ways can go wrong with some readers. For example with me. But I knew we'll eventually find the way. It's shame the art is what it is, this mini-series aimed for the full score for me and almost got that. If you're a fan of black-ops, espionage, adventure and a little bit of (boy) scouting, this is definitely worth the try.
February 17, 2020
Conspiracies deepen as the Black Badges compete in the Rainbow Badge Jamboree against other paramilitary boy/girl scout teams. It's so stupid, but Matt Kindt knows how to toss together a fast-paced read that encourages only surface-level consideration.
I guess the White Badges might be members of the Honour Society? Which is yet another competing clan of teenage warriors? And maybe the Black Badges are on the wrong side in this battle of the subversives? Sure, whatever, basically just keep the Tyler and Hilary Jenkins art coming and I'll be reading.
I guess the White Badges might be members of the Honour Society? Which is yet another competing clan of teenage warriors? And maybe the Black Badges are on the wrong side in this battle of the subversives? Sure, whatever, basically just keep the Tyler and Hilary Jenkins art coming and I'll be reading.
November 8, 2019
Still really digging this series, about the "black ops" division of the boy scouts. The art is great and the story is starting to shape up sort of like Mind MGMT, Jr. Looking forward to the next one.
September 11, 2020
I was actually disappointed that this book didn't have more interaction with The Pink Badge crew, as this volume explores the other espionage scout troops through the lens of the Black Badge characters we met in volume one.
As with the first volume, you don't really get a sense fot the characters, and the plot isn't fantastic, it's just an interesting world-building story that hang out on the fence between spy stories and coming of age tropes. There's a character reveal at one point that I think is designed to be a shock but left me feeling flat. But the twist at the end of the volume was nice and unexpected.
Fans of Kindt's work, and people who enjoy teen protagonists with adult consequences should check this title out.
As with the first volume, you don't really get a sense fot the characters, and the plot isn't fantastic, it's just an interesting world-building story that hang out on the fence between spy stories and coming of age tropes. There's a character reveal at one point that I think is designed to be a shock but left me feeling flat. But the twist at the end of the volume was nice and unexpected.
Fans of Kindt's work, and people who enjoy teen protagonists with adult consequences should check this title out.
May 29, 2021
The Black Badges must compete in a top-secret jamboree against other team of junior black ops scouts, and nobody is really sure of who to trust. Are some of them really working for the nefarious Honour Society? Are the Black Badges rotting from within? We get more questions than answers in this volume, but it's all good, as we continue the same enjoyable kids-as-secret-agents action that struck such a successful tone in Vol. 1.
January 16, 2020
The Black Badges meet their counterparts in a strange Hunger Games-esque action scenario and its much better than it sounds. Jenkins' art fits perfectly with the plot by Kindt. Matt Kindt is full of ideas and the execution is always just as good as the premise. I like that we learned more about the Badges and there were a few twists and a possibly huge ending. Overall, Matt Kindt is golden.
July 31, 2021
This was good, but given the creators, I still expected more. I love the premise, but I was hoping we'd get a slower build. The book flew by and readers haven't learned much, nor the Black Badges. I feel like the book will only get better. Tyler Jenkins does a great job showing emotions without super detailed artwork. Overall, a delightful idea that needs more time.
December 29, 2023
With the tighter focus on one story arc (competing with other scouts at a jamboree), this is a much better volume and even has a little of Kindt's humor in the final issue, but it's still never quite as smart, funny, or tense as the premise of Secret Agent Boy Scouts should be.
May 24, 2024
No one feels like Kindt, but sometimes that results in him feeling more niche than singular. Whereas this style is a boon in series like Mind MGMT and Grass Kings, this simply feels fun, disposable and a little forgettable.
September 17, 2019
Story began to meander and never really went any where good
November 3, 2019
They won the rainbow jamboree.
January 9, 2020
This is just one of those series that I highly recommend to everyone!
July 15, 2020
Really digging this series.
November 6, 2022
Great stuff!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews