Though Invincible is the book everyone talks about that made it out of the brutal forging fires of the dying Image superhero line from 2003, it was originally my second favorite book of the line. Firebreather, a fun series with an interesting premise and terrific artwork, tackled similar teen superhero territory but in a completely different way, and I'm very glad to see Image giving this one a trade collection. Hester is far too talented as an artist to be this good a writer, but he seems to have an imagination for concepts that sets him amongst the top echelon of the industry, whether it's a dead man in a high-tech exoskeleton, a writer drawn into a war in spirit realms or in this case, a boy who is half-Godzilla style monster. Instead of going for the monster movie approach, however, Hester and Kuhn play this as a teenage drama/super-hero book along the lines of the kind of thing Lee and Kirby cooked up in the early Marvel days. The result has some of the old school fun of Invincible with a hefty dosage of movie monster homage and a surprisingly strong throughline about teen angst that pretty much anyone can relate to.
Where the book really succeeds in grabbing me is in the characterization. Duncan is cynical, but he's not completely bitter, and his sense of humor comes through in a terrific sequence with classmate Ken Rogers, even as his darker side is explored in his dreams. I wasn't sold on the principal, whose treatment of Duncan seems like the kind of thing a lawsuit-conscious administrator would never say in this day and age at first, but there's a terrific payoff to his prejudices later in the book that made it all work for me.
Firebreather's story plays in a lot of ways off the cliques of high school. Duncan's quick assessment of the cliques at his new school and where he fits in the school social order is a lot of fun, and his acceptance of his outcast nature is an interesting twist on the cliche. What's really neat is that Hester goes into all the really cool and weird stuff that results from a character like Duncan without losing the real high schooler feeling. Duncan's interaction with the kids at school, including his guilt over what he does to Troy (despite the jerk not deserving it) or the way he interacts with Jenna and Dre, is as solid as anything you'll find in Ultimate Spider-Man, which is the highest compliment I can pay a high school based comic.
However, Hester and Kuhn don't lose the fun and wild stuff, like having a "kindly uncle" who is a take-no-guff UN superspy or a dad who thinks nothing of using undiscovered paintings by legendary painters as currency. It's pretty clear that his father is dangerous and powerful from the opening pages, and the way he treats his son as the inheritor of a legacy of terror and danger is a little unnerving. At the same time, though, Hester's take on the father-son relationship avoids the cliche route as well, and while Belloc might be a stern father, and maybe a bad father in some ways, it's clear that there's a real bond between the characters. I also loved Colonel Barnes, a clear nod to Marvel's Nick Fury whose role as surrogate father and mediator between the divorced couple gives him a lot of juicy lines and a pretty important role in the series.
Andy Kuhn is good throughout, but he's at his best when he's depicting the monster rampage stuff. His work reminds me of a blend of Ted Naifeh, Mike Avon Oeming and Phil Hester, and his unusual design for Duncan and his father really help to establish their alien nature without losing all the humanity necessary to make Duncan sympathetic. Which is not to say that Kuhn can't handle the slightly more mundane high school stuff. There's an insanely good "Lord of the Flies"-esque vision of dodgeball in the second chapter, and the frustration that spills out of Duncan when he's framed for something in the third chapter is equally impressive. I'm not entirely sold on the heavy orange/red color palette that colorist Bill Crabtree uses on the book, but I get what he was going for and in general it works, even if it wouldn't have been my preference.
This is a miniseries that helped to bring the fun back to comics, something that we sorely need in these modern times as both DC and Marvel spiral into patterns defined by their darkest, most hero-destroying books. I'm glad to see Image releasing a trade of Firebreather, and hopeful that this means we might be seeing more of the character, whether in future miniseries or in more trades, sooner rather than later.
