Did you ever see Independence Day? Or are you planning on seeing the unnecessary sequel? Well picture an alien invasion of that scale, but we never leave Texas… and Texas has superheroes. That is the basic plot of Don’t Mess With Us which of course is a spoof on the Texan mantra of “Don’t mess with Texas.” The story gives us three different storylines and characters/groups of characters to follow. The first is a teenage boy that’s clearly just an average kid in love with a girl that’s “out of his league” and dating someone already. Classic high school. When the aliens invade she’s trampled and left for dead by her boyfriend and our average guy picks her up and instead of bringing her to anywhere that can help her, he instead carries her all the way to his house… and puts her in the cellar. I mean sure… aliens… cellar… sure. But I really can’t buy that A) a teenage boy was able to carry another teenager “Superman holding dead Supergirl” style all the way home and B) to his house? Really? I mean… realistically she’s going to wake up and freak the fuck out because she’s been kidnapped and yet I bet that she wakes up and thanks him, falls in love and blah, blah, blah. I lost interest in this storyline instantly and it was really out of place with the next two.
The next two being one about a billionaire that has an Iron Man suit, minus the helmet… which seems like an oversight. He did hilariously get bumped into by a random person and make a note to himself to fire the guy. There was no context really for this so it was just dumb fun. I don’t even know if the guy actually works for him or not since I think he was in a public place, but whatever.
The last storyline is about a family of superheroes that have to pathetically carry around their dad because he can’t fly. It was something out of the 90s X-Men cartoon in which Gambit/Cyclops and Wolverine were always being picked up and carried by the rest of the fucking team.
The story is just these three parties dealing with an alien invasion. We barely see the aliens and instead follow their stereotypical flying saucers. The story is pretty hokey and I’m fairly certain it’s supposed to be. I mean the billionaire is referred to as Billionaire Big Shot Mr. Johnson which among other things is a dick joke. It’s entertaining, but just barely. Hokey is one thing, you still have to have a well put together story and characters worth caring about and right now… eh. Nothing is terrible, but nothing is really good either.
The art is okay. I wish I had a name for the style, but it’s kind of what I see a lot in indie comics. I’ve seen this type of characters in countless comics. It’s attempting to be realistic with its design, but the skill just isn’t there yet. It’s competent and that’s really the nicest thing I can say about it. It’s not exciting, it’s not very good and it doesn’t support the humor of the story very well.
Don’t Mess With Us is entertaining. It’s not going to leave a huge mark on the comic industry, but it might give you a chuckle if you just want to see an alien invasion foiled by Texas superheroes… and a kidnapper.
Score: 2/5
Don’t Mess With Us #1 (of 4) Writer: Bobby B. Smith Artist: Gino Kasmianto Self-Published Price: $5.00 (P)/ $1.99 (D) Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital