1 out of 5

There’s some obvious joke here about the name of this book and the act of reading it.  I’ll let you piece it together.

I’m a tough sell on digital comics, but I like a united front.  When I learned about Thrillbent, I dug that it was this seemingly hand-selected haven for full-on comics, released solely digitally and embracing some embellishments – mainly timed panels – that format allows.  Mark Waid, though I’m plus and minus on his work, fronting the imprint was definitely in its favor; Mark’s biggest skill is writing what I’d consider a “pure” comic – something that distills a title to it heartiest, poppiest elements – and seeing that applied fully under his purview was of interest.  However, this skill gives way to Mark’s biggest flaw: with a pure arc in the bank, a lot of his titles very quickly become standard comics once more, subject to the hems and haws of soap-opera manipulations and Big Event exhaustion.  I’ve learned the lesson several times now, that it’s easy to continue reading a Waid book with that magical first storyline casting a warm glow on what follows, only to turn around 20 or so issues later and realize you’re quite uninterested in the title.

It’s amazing how fast Insufferable managed to bottle and then uncap this experience, pretty much within a single issue.  The first Insufferable storyline was uneven, and felt like a retread of themes from some of Waid’s then-recent titles – Irredeemable and Incorruptible, sharing, obviously, the “I” naming convention and an artist, with Peter Krause – but the sort of humble nature of the Thrillbent enterprise kept the tone, in turn, light, which helped to sharpen the jabs at the hero / sidekick formula.  It was enjoyable, and a good, “pure” Waid idea.  The story – about father / hero Nocturnus’ frustrating dealings with his son / once-sidekick-now-braggot-celebrity Galahad – ended with a thread to follow, namely Dad and Kid coming to terms with their rocky relationship and reestablishing Galahad’s career, which had taken a beating in that arc.  This could have opened Insufferable up to a more long-form character-building narrative, but Waid immediately retreats to doing what he already did: having Galahad be boastful, screw things up, Nocturnus Batman-plot in the background and yell at his son.  While ‘on the road’ in a hopefully celebrity-bolstering tour for Galahad.  And gasp, a dead body at the end of the first issue, which is only the first of several tropes shoved in to force a story to happen that Waid lazily lampshades.

It’s basically like nothing happened in the first storyline, and nothing happens in the issue itself, so we stuff a distraction in solely to justify the next issue.

Thereafter, the most inconsequential connections are made to try to tie the dead body back into a father / son angle, before Waid once more escalates with a “trouble back at home” storyline that rings even more hollow as home was never established as the type of Gotham / Metropolis it apparently was supposed to be.

Krause and colorist Nolan Woodard do good work together, but the digital transition doesn’t go great this time, with statted panels (common in digital, with each “click” revealing a new word balloon) occurring way too frequently and the same concept – one moving figure on a static background – creating some really odd pacing issues, with character responses seeming to occur before the center action is actually depicted.  Sprinkle some lettering flubs on top – unless it’s just poor scripting giving words to people it doesn’t make sense for them to say – and the book, unfortunately, looks sloppy, even though I fully acknowledge the effort and time that goes into something that must be like a project-between-paid-gigs for some of these guys.

Waid caught me with a Nocturnus fakeout late in the arc, I’ll grant him that.  Otherwise, despite having a reasonable story lead-in, ‘On the Road’ ends up reading like every unwarranted sequel ever, trying to repeat the beats of what came before but completely lacking the motivation while doing so.  This is why it warrants such a low rating: it’s almost more offensive (…ALMOST INSUFF… nah, okay) to see an established creator commit that type of writing crime – and so soon after several fun issues – versus someone newer to the game who tries really hard but fails.