Ever since my daughter came along, I've become much more acquainted with the notion of children's books. There's a fair amount of crossover between children's books and comics, actually, because of the heavy interaction of words and pictures, but Wilson and Griffiths have gone all out and made a children's book that is a story that could be told in comics, but which has the style and point-of-view of a childrens' book. The price may cause sticker shock for comic fans, but parents will recognize that it's right in line with the hardcover books their kids read, and if you're a parent with a love for superheroes that you want to share with your kids, you could definitely do worse than Perfect Man.
Perfect Man is an Astro City-esque tale about a young boy who loses his favorite superhero. Not to death or anything so dire, but to retirement, as the hero retires and disappears. If this were a comic, this is the point where the boy would delve deeper into the superhero world looking for his hero until eventually the villain behind it was revealed and the hero was restored to his prior place. Perfect Man, however, is not about what happens to Perfect Man, it's about what happens to Michael Maxwell McAllum, the alliterative young boy who idolizes him. And so it's just slightly different from any superhero comic you've read before.
The approach of Perfect Man is not unlike a lot of children's books I've read, in that it teaches a lesson by sneaking it in under the kids' radar. The lesson is about being true to yourself, about recognizing your gifts and chasing your dreams. It wouldn't surprise me if Wilson were basing the story of Michael and Mr. Clark on a teacher who similarly affected his own writing career, because it feels like a note of appreciation to a teacher who went above and beyond. Perfect Man is the name of the hero that Michael idolizes, but it's also the description of the new teacher who he comes to see as just as perfect. And rather than take advantage of that idol worship or cast it aside, as all too many would, Mr. Clark uses it to drive Michael to utilize his own talents and lead his own life. Whether or not Mr. Clark is Perfect Man isn't addressed, and isn't relevant anyway... for Michael, he is, and so his lessons carry extra weight.
Griffiths's artwork is bright, imaginative and a perfect fit for Wilson's story. There's a terrific mixture of the mundane and the outrageous that grounds Michael's world while bringing the extraordinary elements of Perfect Man's world to life. What's kind of cool is that Griffith captures the mundane in the fantastic, and vice versa. When you see Michael snowboarding or performing a water rescue, it's as exciting as Perfect Man's adventures in space, and makes a nice parallel to the hero and the child he inspired. In the same way, Perfect Man's retirement press conference comes across as grounded and real, more like the choice of a man than the melodramatic actions of a superhero, and that Griffith can maintain this level, making it approachable and relatable to its young audience, is a key part of what makes Perfect Man work.
Because this is a children's book, it does have a bit of a feel-good tendency that will put off older readers. Perfect Man is charming, but it's not chock-full of surprises or packed with exceptionally clever humor or anything like that. It's a well-observed take on the teacher-student relationship, a confidence booster for kids and a paean to the importance a good teacher can make, but there's nothing here that will give the superhero reader the shock of the new. Perfect Man is a book in comics' favorite genre, superheroes, but it is most definitely not a comic book, and might not find favor with that audience. However, I'd imagine it will go over big with kids, and so it succeeds in doing what it set out to do. 8/10
