3 out of 5

Okay, so, just so we’re on the same page, vol. 1 is Robert Kirkman, written around the same time Invincible started.  When Invincible took off, Tech Jacket sat in stasis, and then later Joe Keatinge did an online series which we’ll call vol. 2, which leads into this now ongoing vol. 3 with new numbering in print form.

I’ve been skeptical on Keatinge.  He stuck out of an issue of Image’s Next Issue Project, so I tracked down one of his original titles at the time – Hell Yeah! – and found it to be this oddly successful attempt at pure comicness.  I’ve only read the first half of his take on Glory, but it had a similar appeal, and I thought I’d found a new writer.  But after several what I’d consider failed attempts at Marvel properties, my opinion wavered, but held from completely turning away by Shutter, which tip-toes worriedly tip-toed toward Vaughn’s apologetic feminism and old-man hipsterism… but that’s only in the letters pages.  The content itself combines the energy of Hell Yeah! with another level of imaginative exuberance that’s working for me.  So, methoughts, maybe Keatinge just needs a creator-owned sandbox in which to play, which is true for a lot of writers.

Tech Jacket came with one more layer of doubt to peel through since it’s Kirkman’s world, and I’m not big on the guy.  But since he’s far and away-ish from the character by now, I figured this had a Glory-like chance of being rejiggered for Keatinge’s needs.

The titular ‘jacket’ is an alien suit that’s all super powered and bonded with an Earth youngster named Zack, making him a Green Lantern-esque planet protector.  A unique touch that either Joe or Kirkman added in is a functioning family element: Joe’s mom and dad are down with his powers and respect his ability to make his own decisions, and dad even mans a space station that keeps our lead kid up to date on danger.  The childhood flashbacks that start each issue are a little cheese but well-balanced and do effectively lead into the stories, and underline that this narrative has a different touch than our standard Marvel / DC hero fare.  Our initial arc starts with a huge-ass ship parking near our orbit, and upon Zack’s Tech Jacket investigation, he finds it to be a living entity.  6 issues of fighting this entity proceed, excitingly and bombastically drawn by Khary Randolph, who’s got a wonderfully slick sense of design but is consistent with it – meaning the tech feels believable within the world we’re reading, and not just a fancy design of neato lines.  Colors switch between Emilio Lopez (ish’s 4-6) and Dave McCaig (ish’s 1-3), my preference for the latter, as he uses less notable computer effects for blending / lighting and the slightly flatter look complements Randolph’s anime-esque art, but both colorists have a great palette.  Letterer Rus Wooten’s bubbles have a great sense of padding and pacing, making good work of Keatinge’s pitter-patter dialogue style.

On the one hand, I was surprised by Tech Jacket.  It’s a well-paced superhero comic, with an inventive bad guy and that grounding family element.  On the other hand, it’s a superhero comic, and Joe can’t help but do the normal comic thing of go too big with it, turning that inventive bad guy into a faceless worldwide threat toward the end of the arc.  This somewhat reminds me of his recent Marvel Hulk mini, which took a smaller, more interesting concept and ditched it for big and bad and less interesting.  There, he was hindered by not being able to do much with the character; here, the comic is saved by the characters as the plot starts flirting with tropes.

I suspect if you’re a Kirkman fan, Joe’s done right by you and what was expected of this book, so I can’t fault him for that.  But for all intents and purposes, it really is just a regular hero book, albeit with some appreciated character nuance.