THE SMART DIVISION #1 / Script by ZACK KAPLAN / Art by JOHN J. PEARSON / Letters by HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU / Covers by JOHN J. PEARSON, MATT TAYLOR, JACOB PHILLIPS, JESSE LONERGAN & MARTIN SIMMONDS / Published by DARK HORSE COMICS

FBI Agent Will Bailey is an investigator of the old school. While far from a Luddite, he’s cynical about the Bureau’s increasingly reliance on technology over people. And burned out by years on the job, he’s biding his time until retirement.

Stevie Larque is a White Hat hacker, recently recruited into the FBI. She’s also reckless and too willing to bend the rules to see justice done. Rules like “don’t sleep with a suspect to get access to his computer.”

Together, FBI Deputy Director of Special Operations Marcia Wright hopes they might balance out each others’ excesses. That Larque will renew Bailey’s love for his work and he might teach her some sense of caution. However, their first case quickly leads them both into uncharted territory, as a legendary Cyber-Sec expert turns up dead. Stranger still, her murder is a perfect crime that may have been planned by the predictive AI she had developed to solve murders.

Despite its high-tech concept, The Smart Division #1 is not really about artificial intelligence. At least, not any kind of predictive AI that exists outside of sales pitches and marketing materials. At its heart, this is a story about organizations. Specifically, whether they evolve, whether they die, and whether they are worth saving. Of course organizations are composed of people, so where does that leave the people when the organization is gone? For that matter, where is the organization once the people are gone?

Zack Kaplan’s script does not offer any easy answers. Indeed, apart from a grounded assessment of the stupidity of the post-Information Age that opens this first issue, he doesn’t directly ask any questions. However, this pontification neatly sets the stage before introducing our protagonists. Bailey and Larque are the classic odd-couple buddy cops, but they get enough definition here to avoid the usual cliches. (At the very least, Bailey has yet to say he’s too old for this shit.)

The artwork by Eisner Winner John J. Pearson holds to his usual high standard. The imagery slips between photo-realism and expressionism, creating an aura of unreality as the story unfolds. The color-choices, too, are interesting, evoking the feeling of an old-fashioned security camera monitor, only to cut to conflicting characters on a single page to symbolize their being of two different viewpoints. There are also some truly expressive word balloons and narration boxes, courtesy of Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

The Smart Division #1 does everything the opening of a thriller should do. It hooks the reader immediately, establishing the world and its lead characters with ease. Add in some fantastic art, and you have a must read for all fans of murder mysteries and science fiction.

The Smart Division #1 arrives in comic shops on August 5, 2026.