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CAPES #1
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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Image Comics
Writer/Letters: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Mark Englert
Price: $3.50 US/$4.90 CAN |
By my calculation, Robert Kirkman is writing about as much of Image's line as Bendis is of Marvel's or Geoff Johns is of DC's. Which is to say, he seems to be one of the go-to guys, and while Capes may not be my favorite of his work, it does provide ample evidence as to why that is. Kirkman has a lot of neat ideas, most of them slight twists on old favorites, and he's got a likable, approachable style that seems friendly to new readers and fresh enough for older ones. Capes, like Powers or Wildguard (to name two examples), is old school super-heroes, with costumes, codenames and powers, but with a twist, in this case that they are super-heroes on the clock, and just regular guys off the clock. It's an interesting premise, and Kirkman introduces some neat characters and fun humor in the first issue, but I'm not quite invested in the book yet.
As a first issue, Capes is pretty successful at what it sets out to do. It introduces the characters and premise, teases the first villainous plot and generally establishes the tongue-in-cheek tone of the book. What it hasn't done, at least not yet, is to give me a sense of dramatic tension, because the characters are so casual about their job that the sense of wonder and the sense of danger is lessened quite a bit as a result. The obvious answer would be to amp up the humor, but while Kirkman does provide a couple chuckles in this issue, the humor isn't at the level of Battle Pope or Brit, two of Kirkman's other books that feature a humorous side.
While I'm not really drawn into the plot, however, I do like the trappings of Capes quite a bit. The veteran-newbie partner dynamic is a classic, and Kirkman does a good job establishing that relationship between veteran Bolt and new guy Kid Thor this time out. Kirkman also does the impressive job of creating some interesting new super-heroes without resorting to just pastiche or outright weirdness. While none of these characters are likely to become the next Batman, Spider-Man or even Spawn, there's enough life in their basic concepts, powers and origins to make them interesting in the short term. I especially like what is becoming sort of a tweak of the cliche in comics, where the heroes relay their origins to one another just as regular people would talk about their jobs or their hobbies upon first meeting.
Though much of Capes is about establishing the characters and the sort of working-guy tone (sometimes with an eye towards the tawdry, such as the offer that Claire Voyant makes to a pair of heroes in her husband's absence), Kirkman does drop a few hints about the villains and the plot structure of the stories. A cosmic crossover come back to haunt the characters, a former foe vowing vengeance and a mysterious bruiser villain breaking out of jail all take up a few pages, and though these elements are too small to really give us a clue as to what's going to happen next, they do serve as an all-important notice that Kirkman is thinking plot as well as high concept.
While Capes owes a debt to Powers in that it's an exploration of super-heroes with a bit of a real world twist, it owes a larger debt to Savage Dragon. Not just in the tone, which embraces the testosterone and hormone fueled sex and violence of super-heroes along with the Silver Age schtick, but in the artwork, which is very similar to Erik Larsen's work. Englert's style is similar enough that it could easily be mistaken for Larsen's work, and that includes the same bombastic action and exaggerated anatomy for men and women. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is entirely down to personal taste, but in either case, Englert's style is a perfect match for the book.
This comic book was not among this week's new releases.
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