2 out of 5

It starts off so charmingly – rough around the edges, but eager as heck – and then… stumbles.

Anthologies are hard, which any reader of anthologies already knows; it’s such an appealing concept, getting ultimate bang for your buck in terms of story-to-pages, but with wildly varying levels of success: not only is it hard to tell a full story in X pages, but editorially, finding a rhythm (and maybe a theme?) with your selections can also make or break a good anthology issue.

TPP #1 isn’t perfect, but it’s cheeky, and captures an hit-the-floor running vibe to the Chapterhouse-verse of Canadian heroes, suggesting we should all know and be in love with these characters already, and / or just getting a kick out of them as US-adjacent variants: an Iron Man / Shazam blend in Arrowhead; a Super Friends-y Batman / Fantastic Four’s Thing riff with Grey Owl and Tundra; and who-knows-what with Fred Kennedy’s gull-handed… Gull Girl. I mean… this book just knows how to be fun, and wears its battle scars of being a professionally made fringe book well.

Issue #2 somewhat continues this, but there’s an immediate shift: pro Jay Stephens is still on board for Arrowhead, but the story stalls almost immediately; the tone of TPP becomes more serious with Swamp / Man-Thing spin Crude (except… the monster is a girl!! Ooooh) and presumably pre-established Canadian hero Dominion Jack; and we get the first dose of some anthology troubles in these last two: the art on DJ is rather rough, and hard to follow, which doesn’t assist with the rather poorly paced and over-cluttered narrative – anthologies are a great place to try out new talent, but obviously that can be hit or miss – and now all three stories are To Be Continueds. If telling a complete story in 6-8 pages is already tough, telling an ongoing story in those same installments is even tougher, as you’ve got to both extend your story and boil it down to satisfying chunks; almost universally, going forward, True Patriot Presents’ entries – Stephens’ included – do not nail this pacing.

Meaghan Carter’s Fantome briefly shows up, adding some Boom!-comics YA vibes, and that’s a perk, but it doesn’t have enough entries to feel really established, and is paired with Arrowhead, which never quite gets it story going again, and Dominion Jack, which continues to suffer from narrative confusion and clunk, even moreso once artist Dominic Bercier leaves and is replaced by the overly digital-looking Hugh Rockwood.

J. Torres Tundra returns (with Tim Levins) in “The Family Dynamic,” and this is a title that looks great – like Mike Wieringo’s FF4 – but, similar to Arrowhead, never quite finds its footing in terms of storytelling, wandering without any peaks. However, a brief highlight with Scott Chantler’s black and white, cinematic Red Ensign. This has Atomic Robo vibes – great timing, great action, Nazi robots – although Scott’s occasional reliance on repeated panels can feel a bit cheap in the short format. Still, it’s a strip to look forward to through #9, which also brings in the similarly toned Canadian Sentinel, from Dan Collins and Justin Shauf. This then becomes our saving grace, as Crude’s new artist, Dave Bishop, also is plagued by an overly digital look and completely aimless narrative, and Dominion Jack’s confused tale of a once-hero-turned-rogue and DJ’s estranged wife is nearly illegible – overlapping internal narratives; confusing duplication or abstraction between text and visuals.

…And so it goes.

More charitably, I think had the various creator teams been either more or less limited – i.e. do one-shots and not ongoing stories; take a whole issue or two to tell your story – a lot of the as-perceived weaker entries in TPP could read better. Even when art or writing has amateurish elements, small doses can better highlight what’s working, or a longer runway can allow those strengths to actually build. Instead, the difficulty of an anthology is doubled and tripled by asking creators to do a 2000 AD model – short, ongoing stories – and that’s really a completely different skillset, as evidenced by even seasoned creators like Stephens and Torres struggling with it. This resulted in a series that started strong but could never reestablish that tone, nor really settle into any set rhythm as it proceeded.