World Comic Book Review

26th March 2024

Corruption at its Finest

The Fix #1
Image Comics, April 2016
Writer: Nick Spencer
Review by Neil Raymundo, April 10, 2016

In January 2016 a group of would-be security box thieves called the “Hatton Garden Gang” were apprehended by London police. The unique element to the robbery was that the apprehended thieves were all veteran villains, with the oldest, known as “The Master” or “The Guv’nor”, aged 76. The criminals burrowed though concrete and ransacked seventy-six security boxes, securing 14 million pounds stirling of gems, but seemed entirely ignorant of contemporary problems such as street surveillance cameras. Save for “The Master”, who suffered a stroke in prison and was deemed too unfit for sentencing, most of the robbers were sentenced in March 2016 to seven years in prison.

The first issue of this title begins with an internal monologue decrying the rapid advancement of technology, and how it has made virtual crimes very lucrative while conventional rank and file criminals languish in obsolescence: tech-savvy teenagers steal and defraud millions and use the funds to go on luxurious early retirements, while the old guard struggle with adapting now that people and banks have gone digital. The internal monologue is then revealed to be coming from a ski-mask wearing robber, who, along with a Hawaiian-shirt wearing partner in-crime, have decided to rob an elderly care facility.

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