By Dustin Cabeal
Unfortunately, we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about this cover. What, the holy fuck is going on here? Who thought this photoshopped monstrosity was a good idea and that people would see it on the shelves and want to pick it up and buy it? For starters, the heads don’t match the bodies. The hair for the women are so poorly lasso’d around that it looks tragically bad. What is the dad looking at? What are the children looking at? Why is the mom so goddamn happy to be squatting awkwardly to put those leaves in the bag? I’m not done. Why do they have a wheelbarrow and garbage bags and why do none of the proportions exist on the same planet? Is scale not a thing we can do in photoshop? That wheelbarrow is fucking floating on that grass because it’s sure as shit not interacting with it. Here’s the biggest question, where did all these leaves come from? There’s not a goddamn tree in the yard to produce even a fraction of these leaves. Last one, who buys two different sizes of trash bags? The cover is enough for you to walk away from this issue. It’s front runner for the worst cover I’ve ever seen in my life. I wish that it got better from here, but it doesn’t really.
Michael Moreci is a writer I’ve never really been interested in. I’ve read a lot of his books, but there’s always something missing to really make his writing standout or be next level. It’s always just okay and that’s probably the kindest thing I can say about The Joneses which comes across as a knock off of Ordinary Family, which was a knock of The Incredibles… which is a knockoff of the Fantastic Four. That is to say that it’s about a family with superpowers fighting crime.
The people with powers seems to be limited to one city and the community is big/small enough to really hate these mutants, sorry I mean super powered individuals. It’s big enough that there’s plenty of banks to rob and money to be had which the local police are totally handling on their own without any assistance or interest from the government. The family is on the verge of divorce. The wife doesn’t want them to use their powers, but she’s losing control of her own. The son seems to have the strongest ability but is bullied constantly at school. The daughter has superspeed and the biggest chip on her shoulder ever. Teen angst is the name of her favorite perfume. Then there’s the dad that clearly wants a divorce because he wants to play hero, but he sucks at it. Meanwhile the community watch is coming for their perfect lives!
Everything about the story is typical. It’s TV script waiting to be picked up by a network that needs their answer to the superhero phenomenon. The characters are generic and as deep as the descriptions I wrote for them. The story spends its time on the wrong things like the son being bullied or the community meeting and extraordinarily little time having the family communicate as a family. They’re just angry with each other, but we can only assume it’s the “no powers at the table” rules the mom has created. The son that’s bullied is literally just told “we’ll call the school but stand up for yourself.” The son has the most potential to turn into a villain due to his shitty family that all only care about themselves.
The artwork at times is good and other times a little broken. I’ve included the final panel minus the dialogue, so you get the idea.
I’m pretty sure she’s looking at the cover.
I’m pretty sure she’s looking at the cover.
There’s a lot of inconsistency to the characters designs. The daughter looks the same age as the mom at times and the mom’s head shape changes every single time, she’s on the page. The costumed parts seem to be Alessandro Vitti’s strongest moments, but the book spends the most time with them out of costume. The artwork is decent and doesn’t detract from the story. It elevates it as much as it can, but there’s just a lot of filler to the issue. The lettering on the first page could have used a perspective check as it’s going straight across the page, but the bench is going at an angle. Trivial things like that stand out and detract from the story.
I don’t really like bashing on books like this, but with this being my second AWA title and not being terribly impressed by the first series I read, I hoped for more from this one. The generic plot is nothing special and the characters are frankly unlikable. If you’re going to do the family superhero story, you may want the reader to like the family. Instead, I’m hoping they stop yelling at each other long enough for me to get a good night’s sleep. Sadly, the only reason I read this comic was the terrible cover. I just wanted to write the entire review based on that because I can’t imagine someone spending 4 bucks on this with that cover attached. Maybe there’s a variant cover… wouldn’t be a first issue without one, right?
Michael Moreci
Alessandro Vitti
Ive Svorcina
AWA Upshot