2 out of 5

‘Stupid Heroes’ was first and foremost a tribute to Jack Kirby, and it definitely shows in the character and creature design and paneling.  It was also another entry in Mirage’s shared universe ‘Next’ line, which only had a handful of titles before the imprint sorta’ went away.

All of the ‘Next’ titles had standard settings that were given just enough of a twist to be original.  All were surprising for their creators – Dooney’s ‘Xenotech’ was surprisingly grounded, Farley’s ‘Bioneers’ was surprisingly simple, and Peter’s ‘Heroes’… was surprisingly sloppy.  But that’s just my eye’s interpretation of his Kirby work.  There’s no denying Peter’s artistic skill, so its odd to see his pencils and inks so thick and heavy and anatomically uncomfortable, but then again if you look at some of that old Kirby art… well, there’s no denying The King’s influence, of course, but as he was carving out new ground there were some aspects of his work that look rather silly now.  Which Pete emulates almost perfectly – the closeups that are slightly distorted, the freeform, straight-lined details such that machines and muscle striation don’t look too different, and then the general bombast of the setup, lurching from dramatic moment to dramatic moment.

Oddly, unfortunately, whatever, ‘Heroes’ had the most intriguing premise out of the Next books and didn’t even get to touch on it or develop it much in its three issues.  That we live in a world with super-powered heroes, yes, and that in the Next Universe, there’s a government organization called SWAC that’s to assist and police the super-powered peoples, yes.  But Pete’s addition was a type of dementia that heroes would develop that would slowly cause them to go crazy and lose control of their powers, good guy, bad guy, whatever.  And this disease is nicknamed the Stupid Hero disease, which is totally true to life in our headline-grabbing way of sensationalizing such things and a great title for a book.  The design of the title image is even cool – a sloppy ‘STUPID’ written over the ‘super’ in Super Heroes.

So Peter, in his typical slow build narration (much more in evidence in TMNT vol. 4), gives us a couple of details which could’ve swirled into something pretty fancy – the government secretly working on machines to topple heroes in case they go stupid, a device which ‘tests’ for the indicators of the disease, drugs to control the disease, a hero who refuses the meds and ends the series with – spoiler – his powers going bonkers and probably killing tons of people (BUT WE’LL NEVER KNOW)… but the hammy Kirby tone combined with all of these details feeling like background moments while Peter took his time mixing his brew make Heroes the least satisfying of the Next books that came out.  The art is nice in its sense of tribute, but without that context it, frankly, looks a little shite.  The covers are a bit more patient application of the style and the series could’ve benefited from this more look.  Though, again, maybe that wasn’t the point.  Whatevs.  Gasdkjhaskdjhaksd.  And stuff.