Superhero comics go on regard fulfillment . Readers get pulled into storylines featuring metahuman abilities because the power to fly or do affair at superspeed seem like they ’d lease us solve all our problem . But a novel comic from two great writer see at the interruption between a normal life story and superhero adventures .
I ’ve love Mark Waid and Tom Peyer ’s acquisition at , in their own individual projects , update the key of Silver Age superhero work into the present day . Waid ’s tenure on JLA , Daredevil and Kingdom Come and Peyer ’s take on Hourman all had a multifarious complexness that made the level much more than categorical punch - em - out contests . They ’re co - compose a new leger for Aftershock Comics call Captain Kid , a serial publication that asks why anyone would survive a monotony mundane macrocosm when they could change into a superhero whenever they wanted .
Captain Kid # 1 — with art by Wilfredo Torres and Kelly Fitzpatrick , book blueprint by John J. Hill and redaction by Mike Marts — opens with the forty-fourth birthday of lead lineament Chris Vargas . He ’s an editorial cartoonist at a small local paper that seems like it ’s about to blink out of universe . A TV news paper shows that a superhero be in this world , but we do n’t learn that Chris has power until a cryptic woman prompts him to utilise them to inquire a man at the saloon where he ’s celebrating .
I care how Captain Kid assumes some music genre cognisance on the part of its intended audience . You ’re supposed to screw that a paper job is an allusion to Clark Kent . similarly , Peyer and Waid are trust on acquaintance with superhero comics lore to repulse home the concept at the heart of the Good Book . The magic thought conjuration that turn older Chris into younger Captain Kid is an anastrophe of the magic word shift that turns young Billy Batson into adult Captain Marvel / Shazam . That assume familiarity , however , sets the reader up for some surprise .
For example , after that bizarre meeting in the bar , Chris transform into Captain Kid and charter flying to espouse a white - haired mankind who was muttering villain diction . Once he go far at a warehouse where iniquity is purportedly underway , the superheroing does n’t quite go as expected and Captain Kid gets put off by a simple call to the police . In another sequence where he ’s holding up a crumbling bridge deck , it ’s also made clear that Chris is n’t an all - learned , nerveless - under - pressure superhero type .
Torres ’ artistic production is the perfect vehicle for the ideas being executed here . His linework is extra enough to conjure the wide-eyed days of older - school superhero comic but also uses modern - day cinematic camera angles and invitingly expressive font .
Thematically , this is n’t new ground . The much - exalt Miracleman comics of the 1980s — themselves a potpourri of the Captain Marvel / Shazam mythos — began with the same essence premise of a normal man fighting the enticement to stay in his super - identity all the clock time . But where the series written by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman elicited more of a sci - fi / illusion spirit , Captain Kid reads as a more grounded take . Chris ’ concerns are heartbreakingly intimate .
His senior beginner comes off as gloomy and lonely after the death of Chris ’ mother , and his own trunk is nagging him with foretoken of aging . He ’s find responsibility and duties but not much in the way of joys or thrills . While Chris has seemingly been in action for a while as Captain Kid , this first proceeds makes it clear that there are some problems that wish fulfilment ca n’t lick . He ’s not essentially happier because he can shift into a superdude . Captain Kid feel like it ’s kick the bucket to interrogate the superhero phantasy most mainstream strip take as a given , while also take a poignant spirit at what it feels like when sprightliness is passing you by .
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