Tai Freligh reviews Heroes: Godsend #1…
Farah Nazan… Former soldier and tough protector of Malina… But how did she become the woman she is today? Farah’s origins are explored in Godsend.
From Titan Comics comes a series of comic stories that serve as prequels to the Heroes Reborn television show on NBC. They plan on coming out with several five issue character studies. The first of which was Heroes: Vengeance (check out my reviews of #1, #2, #3, #4, #5) and focused on El Vengador. The second, which just launched, is called Heroes: Godsend and is about Farah Nazan.
The first issue delves into the backstory of Farah as a young girl living in New York. Being Pakistani means that her #teenprobs are the fact that the boy she likes is Afghani and it would be very bad if her father found out. Unfortunately, these end up being the least of her worries as it turns out her story is set during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. Both of her parents are killed in the attack, and to make matters worse, she and anybody else who looks like her is called names, attacked and discriminated against because they look like the men who launched the 9/11 attacks. Her life becomes so miserable that she just wants to disappear and not be bothered…and one day, she does just disappear. Later, she is walking down the street and she sees three men attacking and beating a Pakistani grocer and she suddenly knows what she needs to do…what her uncle meant all those years ago. And then we are transported back in time to a summer she spent in Pakistan with her Uncle Omar before she started college.
The second part of the story is all about her training with Omar to be a strong and agile fighter. He tells her stories about a small tribe of warriors who lived among the Sindhi people in Pakistan and protected the innocent from outside invaders. They were called the Lashkari and they beat back invaders in the dead of night, never seen or heard. Omar tells her that their secrets have been lost to the ages, but for a special chosen few, their traits live on. She doesn’t see the point of defending against invaders when there aren’t any in modern times. He tells her that he’s just giving her the tools of her ancestors and that what she chooses to do with them is up to her. Flash to modern times again and the grocer being beaten to death. Now Farah knows what her calling is and proceeds to disappear and kicks multiple bad guy ass with her training. She doesn’t want credit for saving him, so when the police ask who did it, he tells them it was a Godsend (bazinga!).
The third act brings Renautas and Primatech into the picture for Farah Nazan. At a career fair she sees a table for Renautas, but before she can check it out she’s interrupted by a certain Noah Bennett who asks her if working for a paper company would be interesting for her. “What could possibly go wrong at a paper company?” she asks herself. The comic then closes out with Noah Bennett in the office of Angela Petrelli, asking if she’s “the one”. Angela is unsure, but she wants to test Farah, see how far she is willing to bend before breaking. Bennett joins in by saying she needs to be pushed to her limits because if she is “the one”, then they truly can’t save the world without her.
The end of the comic gives a brief preview of the next issue along with the main cover and variant cover for #1 and the main cover for #2, which features Noah Bennett and the Haitain on the cover! This first issue was very interesting and drawn well. I want to see more, so it piqued my interest. Her character was very important in the Heroes Reborn television show and I’m curious to see how she got to where she was in the show from where she is now in the comics. I give the debut issue a score of 10 out of 10.
SEE ALSO: Check out a preview of Heroes: Godsend #1
Tai Freligh
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