My expectations from a Bongo Comic about super-heroes in therapy were largely that it would be a funny book. There are a couple laughs in here, but what surprised me is the depth of the character work. Rather than a goofy mockery of super-hero cliche, this is the story of a kid sidekick who has fallen into something of a funk, and his recovery from that funk, and it plays around in the super-hero genre, but it belongs just as much to the slice-of-life genre in style. Heroes Anonymous is a six-issue limited series, but this first issue stands on its own, and if the other issues are equally self-contained and well-done, I think the series will be a lot of fun.
If you come to Heroes Anonymous expecting it to be the super-hero equivalent of Analyze This (I confess that I did), you're going to be surprised. The group therapy session actually takes up a scant few pages, and while it offers up some fun moments, such as Blitz's recounting of the obstacles in the super-world, it's really more window dressing than the actual point of the story. It's a framing device to make Attaboy's first person narration fit neatly into the style of the narrative, and the story winds up being about a success story from a recovered addict (to stretch the anonymous metaphor) rather than a group session with spandex.
As it turns out, Attaboy's story is pretty interesting, and much more serious and down-to-earth than you'd expect from a character named Attaboy. In fact, goofy names aside, the characters come straight out of popular fiction. "Birds of a Feather" is about as close as you can get to Diff'rent Strokes without getting sued, and the Batman/Robin relationship paradigm is taken for another spin around the block with the Midknight and Attaboy. While many of the jokes surrounding these pastiches are a bit played, those are fortunately window-dressing as well. The story is about what happens when you've spent your youth not learning enough to function, and how to get yourself out of a funk and/or dead-end job and get your life back on track.
The most interesting parts of this issue don't come with capes and cowls. Instead, the banter between Toby (Attaboy's real name) and his roommates or the relationship between Toby and Lynn are what draws me into the book. Toby doesn't have a terrible life, he just has a very mundane one that's clearly below his potential, and it's interesting that Gimple can make Toby sympathetic and easy to relate to, even though his difficulties are mostly self-inflicted. It's also interesting that despite the goofy (some might even say cheesy) circumstances surrounding Toby's life, from super-hero cliches to an obsession with a bad television show, the reader can actually connect with and care about the character.
Jothikumar and Pepoy match Gimple's script with artwork that is full of energy, clear storytelling and a cartoonish, approachable style. It's not played for laughs much either, although Jothikumar certainly has the exaggeration necessary for comedic storytelling, but is instead used to portray the lead characters realistically. Toby has a sort of sweet everyman loser about him reminiscent of every teen sidekick's secret identity, and Lynn is perfectly cute without being a knockout, which would undercut the reality of the relationship.
