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.