A lot of people rate The Winter Men very highly. On the back page of the graphic novel, the likes of Warren Ellis, Brian Vaughan and Joe Kubert line up to sing its praises. A flick through its pages and it’s easy to see why: John Paul Leon’s art has never been better, capturing life in Russia and Brooklyn convincingly in intelligently-designed pages that flow like a well made thriller.

A man brings a helicopter down by throwing a rifle into its rotors. A table full of Russian gangsters welcome someone to their feast. A young girl’s hand sears an imprint on a wall. A lorry full of Coke explodes. There’s no shortage of visual drama, and with it a cleverly constructed story that looks back to a Russian programme to develop super-powered citizens, and to the present when the legacy of those days is played out in grimy international deals: art forgery, murder, and — most significantly — child kidnap.

Writer Brett Lewis is new to comics but takes to the medium with ease. His skill is weaving different strands so that, as the story moves forwards, we also discover more about the past and the people whose lives were shaped by it. Front and centre in all this is Kris Kalenov, a man whose life is defined by violence and politics, whether formal in the formal sense of state machinations or the intricacies of criminal life.

Lewis is in command of the story throughout. He’s clearly thought through the material not only in a linear way — what unfolds makes sense in that respect, with the requisite thrills and spills you’d expect of a thriller — but in terms of character and theme too. Ideally this should be the case for any writer, but Lewis knows how to enrich every interaction to ensure it works at a couple of levels. Writing this skilful is rare in comics, and not encountered much more often in novels or films.

A good point of comparison here is Jason Aaron’s Scalped. Aaron has a similar control of his material, and both like to come in at stories from unexpected angles. And that’s praise indeed, Scalped being perhaps the finest comic on the market. No sign of Lewis diversifying into mainstream projects for Marvel or DC as Aaron has though — perhaps he has other ambitions, though I’d love to see him write comics again.

While I don’t doubt that it’s all down to nothing more exciting than photo-referencing, it’s good to see that the sequences in Brooklyn and back in Moscow can be easily distinguished. There’s a matter of fact quality about John Paul Leon’s art that adds to the credibility of the story: he draws people with lived-in faces, who seem to move like real people do. A world away from the nonsense that passes for art in most superhero comics.

The Winter Men also reminds me of The Shield, another tale about a morally compromised protagonist. The fact that I’m comparing it to such high quality work tells you about the regard I hold this graphic novel in. Another point of comparison: Howard Chaykin’s seminal comic series American Flagg, with which it shares a corrupt setting, sharp dialogue, and an interesting approach to structure.

You’ve got the idea by now: The Winter Men is good stuff. If you’re at all interested in thrillers, in contemporary Russia, in international crime, in post-WW2 history, this is a graphic novel I can guarantee you’ll get a lot out of. And if you’re someone who’s sniffy about comics, let this be the one that changes your mind about a medium.