Sleeper Season 1

Sleeper Season 1 by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips consists of issues 1 through 12 of Sleeper.

Sleeper is one of my favorite series. In this comic, we follow a sleeper agent, Holden Carver, who is undercover in a super powered criminal organization. The leader of this organization is a genius man called Tao. Tao creates random acts of violence around the world and Carver is supposed to find out why Tao acts like that and hopefully get intelligence for the government. The problem is that the only government agent that knows that Carver is undercover is in a coma after being shot a few months ago.

Holden Carver is in the dilemma that nobody can take him out of his undercover job and that escaping the organization would be extremely difficult. This is why the first story arc is called "Out in the Cold", a title that reflects what our protagonist is going through.

The first story arc is fantastic in getting us into this world. Making us feel what Carver is going through and see the contradictions he lives, as his best friends are super villains and the woman he once loved is trying to capture him (thinking he went rogue).

The second story arc really elevates the story to a whole new level. One spy finds out that Carver is an undercover agent and he tries to get him out. The three part story is fantastic, leading to one of the best issues I've ever read in comics, Sleeper #8, the story is superb, and the art is really incredible. Sean Phillips draws noir better than anyone and he really makes one feel for Carver in this book.

The season has a good ending while showing us a cliffhanger moment to set up the next season. This is a truly fantastic series. I highly recommend it.