HEROES FOR HIRE #1

Review by: TheNextChampion

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Avg Rating: 3.9
 
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Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by Brad Walker
Covers by Doug Braithwaite, Walker and Harvey Tolibao

Size: 40 pages
Price: 3.99

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning comic. Ever since I got a bit burned out from their cosmic stuff, I’ve been wondering when I would get another chance to read a book of theirs. Thankfully, Marvel has answered the call and has rebooted the ‘Heroes for Hire’ team. An all new line up, a new concept for the duo to work with, AND the return of an artist they once worked with? (Brad Walker) This could be the start of something special yet once again.

Here’s my problem with this issue in a nutshell: It’s too ‘by the numbers’. Yes I know when it comes to a new #1 we need to establish the characters and the plot. Especially when it comes to those special Marvel issues where we see the line up shape up. However, there is very little for me to really get into here. There are a slew of heroes on the cover and the solict says even more heroes are going to get involved. Yet we only see a handful of those heroes get involved and a good half (possibly more?) have still yet to be shown. Considering the team members we do is are characters I’m not much of a fan of (Falcon, Misty Knight, and Elektra) it definitely bored me a bit to read. Having said that though, the guys write a hell of a good Black Widow and Moon Knight. If anything having to read their sections were a lot of fun then the rest of the issue.

Brad Walker is an artist fiamiliar with most, as he worked on the other Abnett/Lanning series ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. Can’t say I was that big of a fan when he worked on the title, but I definitely liked his work in this issue. A great amount of detail goes into each page and some of the characters in this are oddly realistic. The first page with Falcon impresses me one way, but disturbs me another because of his mouth. Looks so out of place with the rest of the drawing. (That pops up a bit with other characters in the issue) In fact lips are a bit of a negative I have here, which isn’t so odd to think about because you see A LOT of close ups of lips in the issue. There’s also some clunky layouts in this, one including Moon Knight landing on top of some goons. That looks off to me and I’m not sure why. Other then some of those little kinks, it’s definitely a good looking issue.

This isn’t a bad comic per say, I guess you could say it was ‘there’. Not much of an impressive first issue if you ask me. Consider we have still an arm’s worth of characters to introduce, I wonder if the first arc is gonna be nothing but introducing everyone and then we’ll get to the real plot. Brad Walker’s art definitely makes this issue more worthwhile to read, even though lips seems to be a problem for him to draw on characters. In the end this series screams ‘Trade Wait’ more then anything else.

Story: 2 - Average
Art: 4 - Very Good

Comments

  1. Good review! I agree that this is definitely a “getting the band together” issue utilizing some of those tried and true aspects of a #1 issue. However, this is a particularly AWESOME and well handled debut issue of that archetype in my opinion. Indeed, this might be the best well handled debut issue for a team book I have read in years. That being said, I can’t expect everyone to feel the same way I do and I thought your arguments were well made.

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