Art Ops is a Vertigo Comics series written by Shaun Simon. The comic was published in October 28th, 2015.
Reginald "Reggie Riot" Jones is a man of the punk scene. He likes doing drugs, being with his girlfriend Jessie, and winning money in boxing matches. He's also the son of one Gina Jones, who hasn't done the best job of raising him due to her job... which she never told him about. As a result, Reggie has grown to resent his mother for never being in his life.
All that changes, however, when he's attacked by art in an alley, which rips off his right arm... right at the same time a drug dealer shoots and kills Jessie in front of him.
From there, Reggie finally finds out what his mom does for a living: Gina Jones is the head of a top secret organization known as the Art Ops. Turns out, every artistic masterpiece (and piece of art in general) is alive and able to move about at will. They can even leave the canvases they were painted on and walk about in the real world. Gina's team is to keep them in check, make sure they don't break any laws, and keep their existence a secret from the public.
Even though she gave him a new arm made from living paint, Reggie still isn't going to just up and join his mom's line of work. Spending your son's childhood at work and not being with them much will do that. Of course, then something unusual happens at an award ceremony for Gina featuring the bulk of the Art Ops organization.
All of them just magically disappear.
So now, whether he wants it or not, Reggie has been thrust into his mom's world of living art. With the help of the Mona Lisa (yes, THE Mona Lisa), The Body (a Superhero from a comic who wants to be a sitcom writer), a girl from the suburbs, and an 80s pop icon, he's going to rebuild the Art Ops.
Art Ops contains examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: Reggie gets his arm ripped off by some street graffiti. The Art Ops make him a new one out of living paint, but he now has to regularly spray himself with an antidote so it doesn't completely take over his body.
- Art Initiates Life: This applies to all works of art in the world. Some are merely animated objects or a Living Drawing while others have powers inherent to what they were made to represent, like superhero comic character The Body having all his powers or a depressing piece having the ability to evoke depression across city blocks.
- Body Horror: Scarlett infects several works of art (Michelangelo's David, some Cherub's from Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and the Statue of Liberty) with a disease that turns them into deformed lumpy versions of themselves.
- Chest Blaster: The Body tries to subdue the rampaging Statue Of Liberty with his own, firing a stun shot at her. It doesn't work.
- "Eureka!" Moment: The Body has one when he sees Juliet eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. It gives him the idea to release Bruno and have him track down the Mona Lisa after she's kidnapped by Scarlett.
- Handguns: The drug dealer Reggie was seeing pulls one out when Reggie is attacked by graffiti, and accidentally shoots Jessie, killing her.
- Midas Touch: The Body gives Juliet a superpower, which she is quite excited about. Then she finds out it's the ability to turn anything she touches into velvet, which she is less excited about.Juliet: You're kidding me, right? The Ink Spot gave me the power of drapery?
- Older Than They Look: Isabella. In exchange for watching over a hostile 80s pop music video, she wishes to stay forever young. She looks the same now as she did back in The '80s.
- Superhero: The Body. He's one of the living art pieces in the world, and also a member of the Art Ops (he suspects the only one that didn't vanish with the rest of the organization). He also has aspirations to be a sitcom writer.
- To Unmasque the World: This is Scarlett's end goal in the "How To Start A Riot" storyline.
- Treasure Chest Cavity: The Body has the ability to suck things into his chest in addition to firing them out of it. He uses this power to contain the rampaging Statue Of Liberty.
