Hypernaturals FCBD

Can I just go ahead and start whining now? My longboxes are full of lost treasures, series that I loved but never found mass-market appeal. I can guarantee that The Hypernaturals is destined to share that fate. But darn if I won’t enjoy it while I can.

DnA excel on the cosmic stuff, and they do it again here. This book takes place in the future, but the future is a very recognizable place. Kids still eat sandwiches. The media still loves their heroes. And no matter how powerful the heroes are, there’s always someone bigger.

The Hypernaturals starring in this issue are the newest incarnation of a long-lasting team. Things don’t look good for them on one of their first missions, but I think the real focus is going to end up on the former members anyway. DnA do a masterful job building the core cast with just a few panels for each. This book feels like a successor to the Legion of Super-Heroes; we’ve got a Braniac type, a Timber Wolf type, and a few other generically powered heroes. The book isn’t about the powers, though, it’s about the personalities.

It’s not fair, launching a series with a couple ringers like Brad Walker and Tom Derenick. These guys have been delivering solid super-hero epics for years now. The two artists make everything look easy, from new character introductions to the fearful arrival on an alien world.

My only complaint is that this is going to be $3.99 a pop. Does Boom drop their digital price after a month? If so, I may just get this in that format, because I really want to see what happens.

Don't sleep on this one, Guardians fans!

Excellent

Irredeemable #2

Hah! This was basically "What if Lois Lane acted more like a normal person?" When her sweet admirer from her civilian life reveals himself to be her super-boyfriend the Plutonian, she understandably freaks out. Unfortuantely, this is just another step in "Tony's" breakdown. The civilians closest to him turned over his secret without a second thought. What I like about Waid's story is how easily it could break down into "evil Superman" territory, but it isn't going that way. Waid hits enough tropes to let us know where the parallels are, but he's creating a new superhero world here too. Kaiden is a neat new character with no analogue that I recognize. She's got neat powers and her changes in super-costumes provide a great contrast on her time as a hero, from the rookie befriended by Tony in the flashback to her more hard-core present self. Waid seems to be telling the story of the Plutonian through the investigations of his peers. It's a tremendous idea that lets us meet more and more original heroes while still advancing the overall plot. I'm really liking this series and I'm in for the trade.

Peter Krause's classic style works really well with the material. He's got the almost Silver Age style down, so everything looks right in the flashbacks. His work in the gritty present isn't quite as inspired, but it more than tells the story. Great stuff.

Good

Irredeemable #1

This is how you introduce a new universe. Contrast this to the recent Super-Zombies book, and the difference is clear. The lineup is very limited in this first issue, and the main players are introduced slowly enough to make us actually care when some of them are taken off the board. The Superman-archetype Plutonian in this is a force of nature, not a character. We don't know any of his thoughts or see things from his point of view, other than one telling panel that shows he doesn't take criticism very well. The opening sequence was pretty riveting too. It is easy emotional manipulation to kill kids (especially once you have some of your own like I do) but it really drilled down the essentials of the Plutonian. He is beyond any redemption as of page 2, even though we don't know what he did to the first hero's daughter or if she's alive or dead. Samsara seemed so sad in his attempts to talk about Plutonian, and the slow reveal of his current circumstance was handled masterfully in both the art and dialogue. Waid has created a compelling world of new heroes that are already behind the 8-ball, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Where has Pete Krause been hiding? I loved his work on Power of Shazam and it is great seeing him putting out work again. His action scenes look fantastic, and the detail in his backgrounds is nice to see too. I didn't find any of the new hero designs to be mind-blowing, but they are unique and don't seem to be direct rip-offs of existing characters, which is nice.

There has been a lot of talk about Grant Morrison's afterword, where he gets kind of down on the Internet comic-community and how we pigeon-hole creators. I certainly admit to some of that, but I like to hope I do it for the positive and the negative, since there are many creators whose work I will seek out based on their established voice. I'm not sure Waid is the best guy to be championing either, since he does do a lot of Silver Age type work and did really make his rep deconstructing the Silver Age in Kingdom Come. I do like hearing those described as Dad-comics though! Morrison's ego seems a little bruised after the Final Crisis reviews and I can see why. Shake it off Grant, you and Waid are still tops in my book!

Good