Aftershock Comics 2016
Created & Written by Mark Waid & Tom Peyer
Illustrated by Wilfredo Torres
Coloured by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Lettered by a Larger World
This is one of the more unusual offerings around. Okay so a middle aged man gets to turn into a teenage superhero. How and why we aren’t quite sure as of yet but we’re getting clues that’s for sure. He meets a young woman, Helea, who says they only have until the end of 1986 to save the world which to him is rather funny since it’s 2016. Now that he knows he’s not the only one with powers and with a teenage girl who doesn’t know what year it is can the two figure things out and save a bridge from collapsing?
Helea is an interesting character and the more we see and learn of her this issue the more questions are raised. It doesn’t take long for this whole mystery surrounding her to get much much larger. By her own admission she plays a role in the Captain Kid’s creation but before we can get any further information from her another version of her shows up. The question of time travel is always a tricky one and interacting with yourself at various points in history has always been the one thing writers have said to avoid. So that this time around the boys have thrown that out the window opens up a new avenue.
As if he didn’t have enough on his plate with all that he’s sent back out to find the machine he discovered once already. Meanwhile at Chris’ job Logan is trying to take his position as music editor and his boss is wondering what’s going on with the weather. If Chris were smart he’d start writing about his own adventures as Captain Kid and give the paper an exclusive so that he’d get better pay and keep print alive as the sole source of current and accurate news on Captain Kid.
Ah the bad guys aren’t happy that teenage superhero have interrupted their plans. This guy in charge comes across as smarmy as that Martin Shkreli does, only he’s much older and more established. It’s effective in the writing, characterisation and the illustrations here that he comes across so completely and utterly despicable.
Wilfredo’s interiors are extremely well done. I mean he’s got the look of kid at the end of his teenage years down pat. By comparison his 40 some odd year old other self is the typical middle aged man. His eye for storytelling and how the book utilises page layouts through angles and perspective help the flow run smoothly. I’m a huge fan of using the most out backgrounds as one can and I wish we’d see a tad more of that in use here because when he does use them he does so quite effectively in fleshing out the world, town, moments the characters are in. Kelly’s colouring give us that old school comic book feel and that kind of throwback feeling is great to see.
I like the writing here at times it’s predictable (keeping his identity secret) and at others it’s fresh and new. It’s hard to create a new hero that won’t be compared to someone already existing and so far the boys have been doing a great job with that. There’s a fun feeling you get when you read this that reminds you that superheroes can be uplifting and enjoyable without having to be dark and angst ridden or that it can be serious and yet still fun at the same time. It’s like going back to a modern silver age and for that alone i’m thankful.