Okay: there are some things that you should know if you’re going to read one my review of a comic.

1. I’m a reluctant comics reader. I’m not even really a comics person at all, there just happen to be a few that I really like (like Watchmen, Hellboy, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and Tintin).

2. Double that for superhero comics. I couldn’t even make it through the series that the first Thor movie was based on, even though I liked the movie and the writer that wrote both the movie and the comic. And that was when I was actively taking a class on comics because I want to understand.

Basically I’m a comics window-shopper.

So trust me when I tell you that I opened Alt-Hero #1: Crackdown and it’s so good that I read the whole thing in one sitting.

I was just going to open her up, look at a few pages of the art, and go to bed. But no: I got sucked into the story so thoroughly that I was sad and disappointed to reach the end so quickly. Completely forgot that I was reading the first issue of a comic and not a graphic novel.

If you are a superhero comics reader, the structure is very familiar. It’s a superhero origin story, opening into a Eurozone-flavored X-men setup. All the characters are slightly improbably and – well – very superheroesque in that way that the powers really don’t make any sense and it’s all very weird. (Sorry, I told you I could never get into superheroes!)

However, the characters are compelling. Even the ones who are introduced briefly and have few speaking lines – somehow, they are intriguing and I want to know more. I even want to get to know Captain Europa.

These well-drawn characters lead into quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. And I don’t say that lightly – this wasn’t sensible_chuckle.gif but a literal throw-my-head-back laugh. I appreciate that, especially in a comic that tackles dark political themes.

At this point it’s all positive: gripping story, characters that you can tell have deep backstories, and good jokes.

However (you knew this was coming), there are two things that I hope improve in future issues.

One is the placement of the speech bubbles. Sometimes it was a little difficult to determine the order in which they were to be read, and while I think I guessed right most of the time, sometimes it was a little daunting to look at a new panel and not really know where to start.

The other is that I don’t love the art. It’s not bad art, certainly, and it gets the point across, but it’s not art that I would want to look at for an extended period of time. Note that with the exception of Watchmen, my favorite comics all have highly stylized, refined artwork.

In terms of a story-focused approach to comics, which I think Arkhaven is using, I think this is a perfectly appropriate style – workmanlike, not overly realistic or overly stylized. It reminds me of the amount of work put into something like old-school Doctor Who episodes or a pulpy sci-fi novel — just enough work put in to build the world, but that needs the grace and imagination of the reader to fill in the rest of the blanks.

Basically the antithesis of Modern Literary Fiction™, which I would venture to guess that Arkhaven Comics stands resolutely against. All seems to be in order.

I should have probably said this at the beginning of the review, but I was a backer for this run of Alt-Hero and firmly believe in their mission of pushing back against the SJWs in comics.

That said, I still enjoyed the heck out of this comic and can’t wait for the next one to hit my inbox.

It’s available on Amazon for $2.99 if you’re interested.