Comics Review: "Captain Ultimate" #1

- by Ninja Ross, 9 August 2013

Captain Ultimate was originally born on Twitter as an attempt to find an old public domain hero to reboot. As time went on, it was decided that a new, original hero would be a better idea; a hero that could be fun to write and could offer new stories without all the continuity and dark, gritty tones. So, Benjamin Bailey and Joey Esposito took that idea and created the comic book we have now, with art by Boykoesh and Ed Ryzowski.

You may remember Joey Esposito from my review of the fantastic Footprints and when he answered my questions in an interview shortly after.

Footprints, like I said, was fantastic. Great writing, a dark noir atmosphere and great characters. Captain Ultimate is a different animal, though.

The book follows a young boy as he falls in love with a superhero who has long since disappeared from the world (Captain Ultimate). Of course, you KNOW he’s coming back not long after the boy gets the comic book starring Captain Ultimate himself. Just in time to fight a giant Cthulu robot.

This book isn’t really for adults. Sure adults can like it, it does have appeal, but it’s mostly for snot nosed little brats. It didn’t appeal to me as a reader but I can certainly appreciate what it’s trying to do.

When a five year old says he wants to start reading comics, what do you get him? Spider-Man filled with rape? Batman, starring a clown with his face cut off? Transformers with disease and death?  X-Men with all its terrorism and continuity?

Not that these stories are particularly bad; Transformers is one of the best mainstream comics available right now, but they’re not suitable for the little brats, are they? Do you want to answer the question “Why is Spider-Man touching himself?” That’s not a question you want to answer.

Captain Ultimate is the complete opposite of that. The angry, miserable heroes who prefer to kill the enemy are presented as shady cowards who abandon their fans at the first sign of real trouble and the hero has no other motive than the fact that saving people is the right thing to do.

The book doesn’t exactly have much of a story yet, either; it’s mostly just an introduction to the world, the tone and the hero. It has some cool action, though.

So the writing’s pretty standard. Some of the dialogue’s a bit stiff but, overall, it’s well worth the purchase for a son, daughter, niece, nephew, captive or whatever. It’ll keep them quiet.

The art is... It’s kind of all right, is the only thing positive I can say about it. Again, it’s not aimed at me, but it feels very amateurish as it is right now. The faces especially; they kind of look like something I drew on my work books at school. But it is interesting and I think it’s worth keeping an eye on, to see how Boykoesh develops.

The art is not without problems

The colours by Ryzowski however, are vibrant and make up for the faults. It’s exactly what an all ages comic like this needs. 

I don’t know how much writing Esposito did, compared to Bailey, but it at least shows off his range when compared to Footprints. It’s vastly different. And that Benjamin Bailey looks to be worth keeping an eye on, too.

This review comes to you only a day or two after Paul Pope said that he was told, by a “head of DC” that DC “publish comics for 45 year olds” and that if he wanted to do an all ages book like the one he had planned, he should just go an write Scooby Doo. Although, a Paul Pope Scooby Doo would be interesting...

But it’s good to see that even if mainstream comics seem to be focusing only on adult audiences, all ages comics can be found elsewhere. So, while I may not have enjoyed this book, I applaud Monkeybrain for publishing something that can be enjoyed by kids without all the awkward questions. Actually, Monkeybrain has a lot of titles worth checking out. Trust me, I’m right! Do not doubt me.


Have you read "Captain Ultimate" (get it here!)? What so you think of the state of all ages comics today? Let us know!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

blog comments powered by Disqus

---

Follow @TrashMutant