Not Quite Ready For Television?!?

Global Frequency trade
DC Vertigo
Warren Ellis, writer
Brian Wood, Garry Leach, Glenn Fabry, Liam Sharp, Roy Allen Martinez, Jon J Muth, David Lloyd, Simon Bisley, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Lee Bermejo, Tomm Coker, Jason Pearson and Gene Ha, artists
*** mature content warning***

I'd never known much about this book when it was originally published as a 12-issue series of standalone comics by Wildstorm between 2002 and 2004. I think I'd read or heard a few good things about it because I was familiar with the name. All I can say I knew for certain was that it was rumored to be in development as a television pilot a few years back. I had a light month of ordering comics a few months ago, so I added the trade collection of the series to finally check it out.

I'm glad I did, and I'm also a little glad this series has yet to be picked up by a television network.

Global Frequency is the name of a semi-secret, semi-underground rescue organization. Global Frequency is headed by Miranda Zero, a name we are fairly certain is not her real one. Zero is a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense woman with a large number of skill sets at her command, and she is not afraid to get her hands dirty on the various assignments her organization takes on. The only other constant of Global Frequency is Aleph -- yep, another code name -- a young girl who can multi-task both in terms of managing resources and cyberdata. Aleph runs the central dispatch and processing functions that enable Global Frequency to function, and she is often the only contact others on the Global Frequency ever speak with.

What kinds of things does Global Frequency do? It rescues people from things the general public often knows nothing about. The situations in these twelve stories run the gamut from kidnapping, international terrorism, bio-warfare, alien invasion, secret government military projects gone wrong, you name it.

Talented as these two women are, they simply could not do all of these things on their own. No, they are joined on the Global Frequency by 1,001 agents with various skills and abilities useful in these types of situations. Aleph contacts the people with the specific talents needed given the emergency situation being addressed at any given moment. These people have their regular jobs, regular lives, and are connected only by the specially made cellphones they carry. Most are completely unaware of each other unless or until they are called into service. Some are computer hackers, some are government operatives or military personnel, some are expert drivers or smooth talkers, some are simply killers, and some are just really good at one single thing from cracking codes to solving riddles to traversing an urban setting in record time by looking at it like an obstacle course.

You can see why this type of concept might be attractive to a television network. It has been successfully broadcast in the past in the form of "Mission: Impossible" or "The X-Files" or really, almost any cop-themed show. You have a different threat each week being stopped by the heroes. Except most any example you can think of that has aired on television has one thing that sets it apart from Global Frequency -- a set cast of regulars.

Beyond Miranda Zero and Aleph there is no set cast in Global Frequency. Part of the charm of the series is that not only are the threats different each issue, but so are the experts. And because there are so many operatives working through the Global Frequency, they are expendable in terms of the storytelling. Global Frequency agents can and do die in the course of their respective missions sometimes. That ever-present risk ups the ante and the excitement level for this series, and simply can't be duplicated with a regular cast that must survive to come back each new episode.

I would be all for seeing new installments of Global Frequency, but I'm willing to keep looking for that particular fix to come back to comics. Oh, I'll watch it and hope for the best if the concept ever makes it to television, but I think it is being handled the best with this writer and a different talented artist for each standalone issue.