4 out of 5

Remind me again: which comic was it that ended with a panel of two Meatboy clones vomiting into each other’s mouth with the sound effect ‘splooge?’  Was it Batman: Metal?  My Little Pony?  Batman: Metal Ponies Featuring Legacy Spider Islands?  All excellent guesses, in as much as they are all within equal proximity of rightness, which is to say: wrong.  Guys and gals, it is, of course, Hero Killers, written by none other than Mr. Ryan Browne.  But not drawn by Browne?  Are we turned off?

You shouldn’t be, because we get the fully capable Pete Woods at the deck, perfectly capable of drawing our Project Superpowers crew in all their dumbfounded tomfoolery (the basis for any good Browne joint) and quite a pro at the blend of visual humor, ridiculous action spectacle, packed panels and splashes of gore that we’ve witnessed in such RB classics as God Hates Astronauts.  But this is definitely Woods’ style first and foremost: streamlined, fairly simple, loose, but incredibly expressive.  It’s a great fit.

If you’re unfamiliar with Dynamite’s Project Superpowers world – as I am – it matters not one bit.  The gist was a re-use of Golden Age characters, but Browne’s and Wood’s take doesn’t care much for all that history, except to posit that our setting, Liberty City, accrued a massive hero population thanks to the mayor’s pay-for-saving-the-day policy.  Now there’s no crime and an excess of good guys struggling to be the one to throw the first and last punch.  This is milked for a hilarious intro featuring bootlegging robots before the series breaks off into its main storyline: slighted sidekicks.  Namely Tim, Sparky, and Captain Battle Jr., with Tim leading the charge with a ray gun and a twisted sense of the heroism he’s ‘owed.’  Hero Killers thus sets itself to just that task, as Tim stumbles from zap to zap, going a bit nutsy as his friends deal with it in their own (generally humorous) manner.  Which is a pre-existing story template, but Browne makes sure to make it jiggy with his surreal humor stylings.  Warp dimensions; excessively wordy narrators; and thank goodness: those lovely Browne sound effects.

What’s most impressive about this, though, is that for a comedy series, the story ends up being thoroughly engaging.  The characters are ridiculous, but they’re carved out with personalities relative to the ridiculousness that makes things work at a level above just an ongoing gag.  Things get rather cluttered and sloppy toward the end (sort of like smashing all your toys together in a big battle), but you’ve got that final ‘splooge’ panel to fall back on, so life… is good.