In this review of The Smart Division #1, a pair of mismatched FBI agents are forced to work together on a high-profile case with huge implications for the future. Why does this plot sound familiar?
The Smart Division #1
Writer: Zack Kaplan
Art and Main Cover: John Pearson
Variant Covers: Matt Taylor, Jacob Phillips, Jesse Lonergan
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 8/5/2026
This review contains spoilers
The Smart Division #1 begins as a woman named Mae Santos is confronted by someone she knows atop a Washington D.C. parking garage. Fireworks erupt around the Washington Monument. Elsewhere, FBI special agent Will Bailey attempts to wish his estranged daughter a happy birthday as her outraged response contributes to his growing disillusionment about the modern world and his place in it.
Will meets up with his boss at a bar where he drowns his sorrows as she assigns him a new partner. The story flashes forward, to show a bearded Will at an apparent interrogation about the case. Elsewhere in the past, special agent Stevie Larque’s hands-on undercover op successfully nabs a group of cyber criminals. Later, Stevie meets up with Will at the parking garage to investigate Mae Santos’ murder.
It appears Mae was a contractor working with the FBI. Will and Stevie have almost as many questions for each other as about Mae’s murder (including a giant symbol is spray painted across the top level of the parking structure). Soon, the pair hit up Mae’s former colleague she was subcontracting with for the FBI. He seems surprised upon hearing of Mae’s death and reveals that she had been in a legal fight with the company over not turning over project data.
Apparently, Mae’s AI model absorbed past case files and created new “perfect” crimes. The colleague leaves and his car explodes. Will’s monologue returns as he and Stevie survey the scene.
The Smart Division #1 ends as Will finds a scrap of paper with the same mysterious symbol from the parking garage. Back in the present, Will tells his interrogator that what happened next changed everything as he holds up another scrap of paper with the symbol and mentions a name: Moriarty.
Analysis
The Smart Division #1 feels like all of our current fears over unrestrained technology, mass surveillance, data brokering, climate change and crypto currency were synthesized into a digitized patchwork Frankenstein’s monster. Writer Zack Kaplan is no stranger to creator owned comics, or mixing deep character work with the dangers of advanced technology. Kaplan’s opening monologue for Will Bailey plays out as a disembodied omniscient voiceover as Mae Santos meets her unfortunate fate.
Bailey’s droll delivery lays out his pressing concerns for our failing modern society (likely more for his daughter’s sake than his own). Bailey comes off as a troubled and obsessive individual who is good at his job. Stevie Larque is part 90s goth cyber hacker, with a penchant for going all-in on her undercover assignments. It feels like half of The Smart Division #1 focuses on their initial interactions to the story’s benefit.
The Smart Division #1 feels equal parts The X-Files, Black Mirror and season one of True Detective, but with its own particular spin. Flawed main characters with a knack for solving puzzles are all the rage, so while Kaplan isn’t breaking new ground there, the story takes the paranoid conspiracy thriller to the bleeding edge of “ripped from the headlines” of our technophobic nightmares.
John J. Pearson’s art and color grab the reader’s attention with a harshly bright opening page, followed by moody and atmospheric sequences featuring tightly focused panels awash in a palette of cool colors. Pearson mixes media styles to great effect (take the sequence of Bailey’s public falling out with his estranged daughter, and the follow up street scene) and evokes elements of Martin Simmonds and Brett Weldele.
While the mood in The Smart Division #1 is rather bleak and the two troubled lead characters have their work cut out for them, the plot twists keep the story engaging.
Final Thoughts
The Smart Division #1 weaves an intriguing mystery filled with classic crime procedural/mismatched partner tropes mixed with our modern fears of AI run amuck. The issue doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the character moments and stylish art make for a compelling read.
