After
the Cape #1-3
Image/Shadowline
Comics
Writer:
Jim Valentino
Artists:
Marco Rudy, Manny Trembley
The
newest submission from Shadowline Press (a subsidiary of Image
Comics) is an interesting attempt at adding more realism to the
superhero genre. However, in spite of its best efforts, it falls a
bit short of its goal.
After the Cape follows the story of
Ethan — an alcoholic husband, father of three and former superhero by
the name of Captain Gravity. Well, Captain Gravity’s drinking got
in the way of his superheroing and he was kicked off of the superhero
team and now, to make ends meet, he’s given himself over to the
dark side and become a criminal that uses his gravity powers for bank
robberies. In theory, this is all pretty decent stuff. I’m sure the
sales pitch to Shadowline had something to do with the notion of
merging superheroes with more “real world” issues. And what’s a
more “real world” (and, in this reviewer’s opinion, overused)
vice than alcoholism?
Well,
even though Jim Valentino has some decent moments in this series, the
overall effect is less than the promise of the premise. It gets a bit
hard to care about Ethan since he always seems to find himself at the
bottom of a bottle. Even after being booted from the superhero
league, being blackmailed by a crime boss and losing his wife and
kids, our “hero” is exactly where he began…curled up inside a
bottle of Jack Daniels without making any effort to crawl out. This
could be the biggest problem with
After the Cape, Ethan never
really seems to be trying to stop drinking, even after Valentino
takes the time and effort to show us just how badly alcohol has
affected his life. The end result is this: if the main character
doesn’t care about his alcoholism, why should I?
After
the Cape’s artwork is another point of issue here. First off,
the entire series is in black and white. Obviously, that’s not a
crime. Great, great things can be done with black and white comics.
But that’s only when they feel like they were
meant to be in
black and white. With
After the Cape, Marco Rudy’s work
looks incomplete. It almost seems as if the comic was promised an
inker and/or colorist and then, just before things went to press,
said inker and/or colorist backed out of the deal. The final product
feels only half finished. And, speaking of half finished, issue three
reflects a serious breakdown of production logistics as the second
half of the comic is penciled by an entirely different artist: Manny
Trembley. Trembley’s style is vastly different from Rudy’s and
the changeup is jarring to say the least. At the back of the issue,
the production teams admits to having “problems” with production
and being forced to bring in an emergency artist in the form of Manny
Trembley. All in all, this entire series feels like it “coulda been
a contender” but, sadly, it wound up being the neighborhood kid who
never quite made good.
Overall:
6 on 10. Terrific premise, flawed execution.
