Ming Doyle is a relative newcomer to comics, but her art has been featured in anthologies such as Comic Book Tattoo, Womanthology: Heroic, volume two of Popgun and many other places in both bigger and smaller comic companies.
Doyle's aesthetic as an artist is similar to that of Wood's, who unfortunately does not do as much are or design of books as he has in the past, which gives a synergy to this collaboration. Another newcomer, Jordie Bellaire, contributes a restrained palette of colors, fleshing out the world visualized by Doyle in her job as the book's colorist. Colorists in comics do not get the attention that they deserve, but it is their work that helps bring the world in the pages to life, making just as important of a final contribution as the artists themselves.
On a slightly political note, it is nice to see a comic where two-thirds of the creative team is female. With the subject matter of this book, I honestly think that helps.
Mara Prince, the title character, is a super-star athlete in a future athletes are super celebrities. At seventeen, she is the foremost star of volleyball around the world with endorsements and payouts unimaginable probably to current athletes. She lives in an exclusive home unobtainable by most people in the world (even by her teammates), far, far above the hassles and problems of the rest of the people in her world. This is not without drawbacks, because she also suffers from isolation from the world that watches and idolizes her. However, it is slowly revealed in this first issue that there is a secret, other than her celebrity that also isolates her from the world, and is at the root of her capabilities as an athlete. I won't give it away, but the reveal in the final pages casts an entirely different light on the character and the story.
There is a morality at play, but it isn't apparent until the last few pages. I won't give the reveal away for those who haven't read the book yet, but I can say that it casts the story into a "What would you do to be the best at what you are? Would you even lie?" direction. The issue pulled me through the story, and when I got to the ending I had to go back and read the entire comic again a couple of times to see if that ending was as blindsiding as it was at first, and then I picked up the little clues leading up to the reveal. This is a remarkably subtle story. In ten years, this will be one of the comics that we all look back at and point at as a demonstration of how comics can be more than protracted fist fights with interjections of emo "character development." Brian Wood and Ming Doyle give us a sophisticated story that is very literate. I know that I am looking forward to the next issue. I want to see how the big reveal impacts those close to Mara, as well as the world as a whole. It's just that big.
Should you buy this comic? I give this my first unreserved recommendation of "HELL YES" for 2013. If you like comics that are more than just super-heroes. If you want literate, thought-provoking storytelling in the graphic medium. If you just want a damn good comic, Mara is the comic for you. Now I will start to impatiently wait for the next issue to come out.