2 out of 5

A few too many ideas (good ones, it should be said) caught behind a wall of unformed story-telling from both writer and artist.

Old School, at its highest level, concerns an older generation of superhero – operating in the 40s and 50s – now retired, grandpa / grandma-ing kids, or maybe ekeing by on lesser glories, until a new catastrophe calls a local group of them back into action.  This is where the story stays for at least a few pages, and though it’s not a new concept, writer Robert Burke Richardson and artist Alan Gallo give the sequence a nice homespun feel that comes across as confident, and not in a rush to make any wayward stabs at contemplating old vs. new.  After bopping through a bit of forced setup, the first of several twist cards is played, and although the build-up is clumsy – a few too many pointless “meanwhiles,” go-nowhere asides, and after-the-fact world building (Oh yeah, remember how our setting is populated with am excess of heros?) – I did sincerely appreciate that Richardson and Gallo had concocted an actual reason why the older generation was required on this particular save-the-world mission, and that ends up (thankfully) sparing us from too many old-timey jokes because everyone knows they’re on duty.

This carries us most of the way through Chapter 2 functionally enough.  Gallo’s artwork has personality but also the kind of stiffness that seems to mark a lot of indie or newer artists, and unfortunately, as the “budget” of the story inflates – jumbo jets, alien worlds – his sense of scope can’t quite meet the needs, so we get a lot of open space and skies that do nothing for immersion.  And when the narrative drops twist two, which is interesting but has had no real justification in what we’ve witnessed so far, that lack of immersion becomes a bigger problem.

This pattern doubles-down in chapter three, with bigger ideas and thus bigger gaffs, both writer and artist struggling to fill the holes and just barely managing, although I do think the inker and colorist unique to that chapter – Kelly Ishikawa and Berny Julianto respectively – add back in some mood and depth Gallo’s work was lacking elsewhere.

The final page twist underlines it once again: There were some cool ideas here, and hints of fun characters.  But it’s too much for three chapters, and with so many top-level ideas to deliver, it seemed to rob the story of space for better character and world-building.