A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Okay more precisely it was summer 2007….anyways, I was getting somewhat back into the industry. The noob in me was trying to get anything comic books and that is why in a desperate attempt: I ususally picked up Wizard magazine. During this time I remember seeing the magazine hyping a series called ‘Project Superpowers’ like crazy. Stating that with the mind of Alex Ross; this was going to be the best new series for 2008. It’s now 2009; so obviously I never got to read this ‘best new series’ until in trade format. Is the hype worth all that much? Or is this revival of the Golden Age a waste?

Jim Krueger and Alex Ross must secretly love each other. Cause these guys have been doing projects together from a long time. (Currently doing Avengers/Invaders as of this review) But if there is any writing team that I would want for a Golden Age revival, it’s these two. Right off the bat; this title is very mixed for me. There is some really interesting characters in here and some cool moments in the plot. But some characters arent that interesting and they slow this story down. Case in point: main character The Fighting Yank. His burden for what he did to these heroes is interesting at first; but constant retelling us of this burden and whining about it just made me bored to tears with this. Oh god dont let me bring up the two ghosts that follow him! Worse then his constant whining. But, other characters are very interesting and I would love to read a self-titled story with them.

The Death Defying Devil (who is currently starring in Savage Dragon….and is a whole completely different character; and in his self-titled series), Green Lama, Pyroman, Human Target, and the best character of them all; Mr. Face, are my favorite characters. Some of these characters have huge importance to the story, others dont. Which is a bit of a problem for me, cause it doesnt seem like some of these guys have much of a point to this story. Mr. Face is an amazing idea of a character; but he’s not even used during the final battle. Considering how many characters are used; there’s just too many and ultimately serve no purpose.

The art for this is also a mixed bag for me. Pencils by Carlos Paul are very good to look at most of the time. It anit no Alex Ross (which I would’ve love to see him do the art for this), but it gets the job done. He does the fight scenes well and he makes sure to give every character introduction a ‘wow’ moment. What I dont like about the art is the bland coloring. Colorist Debora Carita just brings a muddy, bland color to this ‘epic’ re-introduction. Skin tones look way off; the background are just a fuzzy mess; and sometimes characters look like different species cause of the coloring. In the #0 issue collected here at a much better colorist…which is bizarre cause it’s done by a whole studio (Inlight Studio).

Lots and lots of extras with this trade….and it’s mostly all pencils by Alex Ross. Ah, now we get to the good stuff! Okay so I might have a weird obession with Alex Ross; but can you blame me? Look at the covers he provides for this series! I know he does 1,000 covers a year in the industry; but you can just tell he put a lot of effort into these particular covers. Not only that but you get a ton of model sheets; backgrounds of the golden age heroes, and some other pencils to final design pages from the real artists of this book. But it’s all about Alex Ross and his literally dozens of character models in this for me.

Was this series overhyped? Most definitely for me at least. Dont get me wrong, the story is decent enough to bring these heroes back into the modern age. But all of the mysticism and sci-fi elements sorta hinders the experience of seeing these heroes again. Add to the fact we have a very annoying main lead in this book and how some characters are seldom used. This overall wasnt a polished preformance by Kreuger/Ross. Plus dont forget about the so-so coloring which almost ruins the whole comic in itself. However, this was interesting enough for me to at least warrent another read for me when the second trade comes out. Maybe with more emphasis on actually showing how great these Golden Age characters are in the first place. Then the second trade could be very good. As it stands, it’s 50/50 for me to actually recommend this. It’s up to you to decide if you wanna give this a go.