3 out of 5

We’ve had a lot of these stories by this point, poking fun at the superhero genre by deconstructing it a bit.  That’s not to say there’s not still value to the setup; Chris Roberson’s and artist Dennis Culver’s chosen method for success is… basically to keep it simple.  Instead of going for overly clever satire or Morrison / Moore type head-reeling shenanigans, Edison Rex opens with a nice flip of the status quo – the bad guy becomes the good guy – and then essentially proceeds logically from then on.

I actually came to the series via Dennis Culver, after falling in love with his style on a recent DHP bit, and his charm carries over here:  Wide, spaced-out panels giving each page tons of room to breathe while somehow also featuring larger-than-life characters and action, and perhaps – working in concert with Roberson – encouraging the writer to distill the dialogue down to its essence, which helps balance that tone of simplicity with a touch of cheekiness.  The way in which Roberson orchestrates Edison Rex’s (a Lex Luthor proxy) switch from bad to good is hilariously smooth, so to give that away would be part of the joy of reading the book, but the majority of the trade deals with Rex’s frustrations in convincing the population that he’s here to do good stuff now, as well as constantly reaffirming to his loyal sidekick, M’Alizz, that he knows what he’s doing.  And again, this works because it feels honest.  Supposing Lex Luthor did have the world’s best interests at heart, only to be distracted by his hatred for Superman.  Remove that distraction, and what happens?  And that’s what we have in ‘Edison Rex,’ a step removed from comic melodrama so we can giggle at it but otherwise played straight, and with plenty of nods to comic characters and storylines from across the years.

It’s not Watchmen, or one of Morrison’s batshit reseatings of the status quo; Roberson and Culver have just found a fun and harmless way to pull apart the superhero concept, and that it’s characters have their own voices despite being clear variations on classics speaks to how naturally the material springs off the page.

The trade also features an impressive amount of back-up material, with in-universe character files, and some behind-the-scenes pages.