08th Apr2022

‘Project Superpowers: Fractured States #1’ Review

by Dean Fuller

Written by Ron Marz, Andy Lanning | Art by Emilio Utrera | Published by Dynamite Entertainment

Being a fan of 1940’s heroes and characters, I’ve loved the Project Superpowers books since they first appeared. It didn’t hurt having Alex Ross on board of course, as a designer/ plotter and cover artist. He makes anything look good. What Dynamite did was take a whole load of now public domain characters, many of whom had very brief moments in the Sun a long time ago, and give them a bit of spit and polish. They took their greatest weaknesses, their old values and out of date look, and actually made that the driving force of the books. How would these characters act today? would they still be heroes? Would they like what we’ve become? A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the book’s launch in 2008, but this new storyline still, it seems, plans to tap into that question. Just makes a hero relevant?

We open with quite the blunt hammer. You don’t get a more obvious ideological nudge than the patriotic hero The Flag being beaten to a pulp in the shadow of the Abraham Lincoln statue in Washington D.C by a shadowed stranger attacking modern America. Is The Flag still relevant, are his values? Are they worth fighting for? Dying for? Apparently so, for him at least. We then find ourselves looking in on a naked stranger, one seemingly living in an underground bunker. He can’t remember who, or what, he is. Is he The Flag? Where he is, is under an abandoned fairground, which is never not cool. That big huge monster looming out of the gloom, not so good. Especially when you are naked. Fortunately, the Black Terror is on hand. Or Black Terror’s plural. This is all very confusing.

So, it seems we are in Florida in the near future. Things have not been going very well, the world suffering a full environmental collapse. The average men and women are of course badly suffering, whereas the architects of all this, the wealthy, now live in elevated cities that avoid the consequences of their actions. The place is Florida, the year is 2052. Before any more meaningful exposition can happen, the Terror’s and our mysterious stranger come under renewed assault, which is how we leave it for now.

There was a lot to unpack with this first issue, though not all of it good. Firstly, Marz and Lanning are two top tier scripter’s, but this issue felt very light for the launch issue of a new book. It just felt stretched out, with not enough plot to fill out the page count. What there was, was definitely intriguing, but dragging out multiple page fight scenes didn’t advance the story enough, or make this book feel like a must-read. Nothing here made me really excited. Curious , yes, excited no. Which is a shame. If the book had continued in the tone of the first few pages, with The Flag, then that would have got me excited.

The art, by Emilio Utrera, is not bad, reminded me a lot of the house style of the old Malibu Comics line. He has to carry a lot of the weight here, with many pages having minimal dialogue or none at all. The art has to carry the story, and Utrera mixes it up nicely with his layouts and panel sizes. It is solid and well done, if unspectacular, art. Would I recommend this book to others? Genuinely not sure. It’s got a hook for sure, but not a good enough one to make this a must buy. I would probably give it a second issue.

Not bad by any means, but for me a first issue needs to make you take notice, to give you an idea of what to expect from this world and its characters, and make you want to return to it. I never really got any of that, and when you are fighting for shelf space every month, you only really get one chance to make that first impression.

Issue 2 needs to be an absolute stormer.

*** 3/5

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