After last month’s whatever, we’re back at it with another installment from the World’s Worst Superheroes. Did the duo survive after the 24 hours of not klanging? If they do, do they still have their powers? More importantly, do I give a shit about this story yet?
Read MoreThe Paybacks continues to be a surprisingly thoughtful book underneath all of its gags, driven by Shaw's all-around excellent art. Bloodpouch has always sort of been the de facto main character, and I'm happy to see him rise to take up the mantle in this issue. A series like this deserves nothing short of a goofy, incompetent hero with a silly power, nothing to lose, and a lot to avenge. The sequence in which the faux-Miss Adventure reveals her sexuality is yet another case where this creative team demonstrates its penchant for well-timed humor. Even in a series this absurd, Rahal, Cates, and Shaw demonstrate that timing is everything and there's plenty of humor to be mined from normal moments to which many of us can relate.
Read MoreThe Paybacks now in its second volume moves from Dark Horse to Heavy Metal and continues to be the most fun you'll have with superheroes in the Western hemisphere. I don't read as many superhero books as I used to. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out whether that's because something has changed with me as a reader or the number of good superhero books being published has declined. (For what it's worth, I wager it's quite a bit of both). In any case, there are still some great superhero books out there, just not in the places you'd expect. One-Punch Man is probably the most popular, or at least the one with the most meteoric rise in the last year. My favorite on the manga side of things is actually My Hero Academia. That's for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it's sort of carrying a torch that Naruto used to carry, it's smart without being annoyingly cerebral, character designs are original and interesting, and it takes seriously the relationship heroes have to their society.
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