By Dustin Cabeal
If you’re a fan of Ryan Browne’s strange sense of humor, then you might be a little put off by Hero Killers. Browne’s humor at times pop’s up, but overall feels throttled back. This throttled feeling essentially kills all of the jokes or makes them so safe that they’re not that funny. Which is a shame because the concept is humorous even if it take damn near the entire issue to set it up.
That is my biggest gripe with this issue; it is both boring, but necessary. Browne takes all of the Project Superpowers characters that Dynamite still has for some reason (they might be public domain I don’t know, and I don’t look shit up because it won’t change the outcome of anything I say). There’s no continuity to them, so he’s just slapping them all into one story. The premise is that Liberty City started paying superheroes to live and fight crime in their city, but it got to the point that there wasn’t any crime and too many crime fighters. Funny right? Yeah, it takes a shit ton of pages to set that up. Eventually, the sidekicks take center stage, and the story picks up… on the final four pages.
One of the things that is definitely Browne’s humor and didn’t work for the book were the captions explaining the lettering. I suppose it was also to educate, but it just ended up being a lot of extra reading. Again, it feels like Browne was reined in which is a damn shame. Granted to normal Dynamite readers, they’re mind is probably going to be blown, but that doesn’t change the fact that it just misses the mark.
The art is solid. Why wouldn’t it be its Pete Woods. Woods does a great job with the humor, and the two make a for a great collaboration. There is often a bit too much going on, on the page. This is, in part, the point of the story. It still ends up feeling cluttered and overwhelming. I’m sure some jokes were missed because I just ran out of patience with the page.
I will be back for the second issue for the very reason that everything has been painstakingly set up in this issue. With that out of the way, there’s some real potential for entertainment in the next issue. Let’s just hope the comedy rings through more.
Score: 3/5
Project Superpowers – Hero Killers #1
Writer: Ryan Browne
Artist: Pete Woods
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment