Broken Frontier

The one-of-a-kind odd couple of Milo and Captain Valor get the ongoing series treatment.

In this world Milo is a slacker in a shaky relationship with his girlfriend, Stephie. Captain Valor is a noble superhero who only exists in a comic book and wages exciting and devastating battles against his arch-nemesis, Caliginous. When Valor (who is Milo in an alternate reality) shows up on Milo’s doorstep and explains that Caliginous (who is Stephie in that same alternate reality) has destroyed the hero’s universe, it’s settled: this world will never be the same. Things are further complicated when Caliginous kidnaps Milo and takes him to her spaceship whereupon they allow their…animal instincts to take over. After all, she is like his girlfriend’s evil twin, and Milo is a bit soft in the fortitude department. Naturally, every party related to this momentous occasion finds out what happened, and from there Hero Squared is born.

Everyone likes an accessible story, and Giffen and DeMatteis offer just that here by explaining the majority of the above in the first few pages. From there, the majority of the story revolves around how the super-characters are adapting to their new world and explaining their next move. This might be one of the most exposition heavy issues of a comic since the heyday of Chris Claremont, but that only helps to instill value into a slightly pricier book. That the dialogue is mostly playful and snappy creates an air of lightheartedness that one might see in a quality buddy-comedy film. Then, with five pages left, a dire situation occurs and the exposition completely disappears to make way for four full pages of tightly rendered silent drama. The end result is not quite as powerful as the creators might hope for but the point of the scene is well taken.

Joe Abraham and Ron Riley create a look for Hero Squared that is very similar to what Ryan Ottley and Bill Crabtree bring to Invincible. That is to say that the art is clean, clearly paced, fun and well-suited to the subject matter. It’s simple, superhero comic book fun that is visually appealing; it’s all the reader could ask for.

Coming off a fairly successful miniseries and special one-shot, Hero Squared looks like it might have what it takes to become a long-lived, ongoing piece of fun comic book entertainment. BOOM! Studios has been putting out a lot of quality work lately, and this book keeps that tradition alive.