Project Superpowers

Project Superpowers #1

by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross (Artist), Carlos Paul (Artist)

From the dawn of the 20th Century came a new chapter in mankind's history, unleashed during a time of great war and destruction. It was the beginning of the Age of the Superpowers, yet with the closing of the Second World War, this new spark seemingly flickered and died. Now, the story can be told of the great lost Superpowers -- men and women with incredible abilities who changed the course of mankind forever, and who had been thought lost...until now... Showcasing the work of Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, Stephen Sadowski, Doug Klauba, and Carlos Paul, this hardcover collects the first story arc (issues #0-7), and features behind-the-scenes sketches, character designs, and a complete cover gallery by Alex Ross, Michael Turner, and more!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fantasy, Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

263 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2008

About the author

Jim Krueger is an award-winning filmmaker, video game developer and New York Times best selling comic book author.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is actually a great idea for a series. Gather all the public domain heroes out there from the 1940's and reinvent them. In the hands of a better writer it could have been great. This was merely OK. This is mostly setup for how the heroes from the 40's are now in modern times. We're never given a reason why the Dynamic Forces (See how they worked the company's name into the book.) are now evil. Instead it appears in a #1/2 issue that was packaged with Wizard Magazine. WTF! Alex Ross's art is fantastic. He has this ability to make the goofiest character look amazing.

[Nicolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dynamite Entertainment bringing back Golden Age superheroes from the public domain with Alex Ross redesigns and covers seemed like a license to print money. Only if they had a better writer on helm it may have caught on readily. If James Robinson collaborated with Ross on this it could have been. Still, it sold enough to merit a sequel and a few spin-offs.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is actually the staging point of a greater body of work, a reintroduction of Golden Age heroes with a story that is basically an explanation for how they all ended up in the modern day. And there are some interesting characters here (I liked Green Lama especially), but overall the book is pretty muddled. A third of the heroes are hardly even introduced or differentiated, and the reason why the villains are the villains isn't really explored. The idea of a hero being misled into doing evil isn't particularly new, although the implementation here is interesting. And there are many roads to further explore the world created, although the climax of this book isn't very fulfilling. The artwork is very good, though, and not just Alex Ross' covers and background work. I wasn't completely sold on it (especially the zero issue that starts it off, which just felt really poorly done), but as an Act I of a larger story, it isn't bad.

[Gavin · Rating 1 out of 5]

***DISCLAIMER***

I only read the first issue, for free, on Humble Bundle.
It was about the most verbose thing I've read this side of Webster's Dictionary.
This is the same team that brought us Justice, which was much better.
This is just another excuse for Alex Ross' painting/art.
Jim Krueger is NOT a good writer.

Pretty much, the main character is a terrible cross between Captain America and Paul Revere. He's guided by the spirit of his grandfather, who was an American Revolutionary in 1776....they share the same name, and that's super duper.
This guy, along with a bunch of other 2nd string versions of the usual crowd, fight Hitler in WWII, but what they don't know, is that it's all being caused by Pandora's Box (hmm...didn't Geoff Johns just try that too?). Except it's not a box, it's an amphora (wine jug). Oh and it needs supernatural power to contain/stop/destroy it.
The only supernatural powers that this dude is supposed to use, is HOPE.
Yes, HOPE is a supernatural power now...contained in each and every one of the supes he hangs out with and fights evil with.
He's not sure about this, until the Atomic Bomb drop doesn't happen where it is supposed to in Japan. This convinces him that Supernatural forces must be telling the truth...so he goes about taking on the task of trapping all his friends in Pandora's Wine Jug....Yes.
Kinda a dick move if you ask me...
Well, he goes about doing this to just about everyone, and thinks things are all good. Then he retires.
Yup.

OK so now I add the part where, as an old man, he is visited by a spirit that accuses him of great crimes and evils...oh and this was the START of the book. Because of course, we need to have the old man having a flashback for like 80% of the first issue of a new series/event.
So then boom, events described above in WWII, where he's told of all the supernatural evil by the military minds...and that all goes down.
Except, the future is like the bad pictures they show in every other book, with Mutants and Robots controlling everything, kinda like a bunch of ho-hum humans going around like it's all normal.

Cue the spirit visiting our "Hero" telling him the only way to make up for his evil is to release all his friends from Pandora's Wine Jug.
At this point, you'll never guess who shows up...the spirit of the hero's grandfather, the one who guides him in the first place...well then the 2 spirits have a debate/argument about who's right and who's telling him the truth...

At this point I think I'd assume I was having a dementia breakdown and just sit back down and have some prune juice and wait for Matlock to come on.

Well, the spirit that appears finally reveals itself to look just like an AMERICAN FLAG, and represents THE BLOOD OF ALL PATRIOTS KILLED BY EVIL. I shit you not. Apparently, once the flag shows up, well all bets are off, and OK I'll do whatever you say.

So step 1 for our hero? Go seek out the ONE teammate from way back when who walked away from everything after the war because he didn't like what was going down.
Green Lama.
Yup. Green. of course.
So he has to be found, living in Tibet or some such mountainous place that all comic book writers assume the Eastern Mysticism and Karate type dudes all live and get their powers from.

Green Lama will know EXACTLY what to do with Pandora's wine jug and how to free their friends...who will go right back to work fighting the evil of the modern world (mutants robots tigers and bears oh my!).

So that's where my free book ended. THANK FUCK.

Wow. Just. NO.

Please avoid this. I see Anne's name on the want to read side? NO YOU DON'T.

So many words, so little action. So stupid, could have been explained in a few pages not like 40.

Also, this isn't an anti-hero, or some badguy who has to do something to save everything including himself...this is a dude who listened to the voices, and was openly mocked by his fellow heroes back in the day for believing in mumbo-jumbo and talking to himself. NO one took him seriously, then he went around and imprisoned everyone he ever called a friend or ally. He's now a senile old dick, and I hope they get out of Pandora's Wine Jug and fuck his old incontinent shit right up.

PHEW. Rant over.

Imagine if I'd actually paid for this???

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptional comic using many of these forgotten Golden Age superheroes. Excellent art and story made this n entertaining read. Very recommended

[Alex Sarll]

An excavation and retooling of various also-ran superheroes who ended up in the public domain – the likes of the Flame, the Green Lama, and the Fighting Yank, and if you've never heard of any of them, you're not really missing much. I've enjoyed some of the weirder spin-off books that later came out of this (Warren Ellis and Colton Worley on the creepy Blackcross; Ryan Browne's typically outrageous Hero Killers; the ridiculously meta bits of Max Bemis' Black Terror), so between that and an ill-advised bundle purchase, I thought I might as well have a look at the series which kicked it off. Unfortunately, it's quite poor. I know these are all characters from an era of comics when being two-dimensional was regarded as effete if not Communist, but the previous attempt at bringing them up to modern standards, the Alan Moore (and subsequently Peter Hogan)-directed world of Terra Obscura, still managed to make something of them – characters who served as reflections of their more successful peers, while also being distinct in themselves. Alas, that seems to have been forgotten, though having them fight a corrupted mechanical version of one of their own is here, so that by comparison Project Superpowers manages to feel faintly repetitive of Terra Obscura, without having picked up any of its valuable lessons.

Alex Ross was the big name attached to the enterprise; he co-plots and supplies covers. Of his two most frequent writer collaborators, Kurt Busiek clearly had something better to do, meaning we get Jim Krueger. Who was never exactly one of the greats, but I'm sure even the questionable likes of Universe X never read quite as clunkily as this. A character who fought in the Second World War refers to it as "the Great War"; another, only just resurrected in the noughties, and seeing himself and his team-mates painted as villains, says "We're the new Axis of Evil", when surely he'd just say 'Axis'. One character can't stay still because the villains are tracking him, but is fine to make brief visits to the new team HQ, even though the old one just got trashed by the villains tracking him, because...well, I can infer possible reasons, but certainly none of them are explicit. Pandora's Box (which is an urn, though that one isn't their fault) is a big part of the plot, occasioning this reflection from one character: "And how like Prometheus I've become. How similar were our sins. One to take fire, the other to try to blot out all darkness." You could rephrase that to make the two deeds sound similar, but in this formulation they really don't. Best of all, there's the big speech: "Perhaps this is at the root of what it means to be a hero. That at some point, a hero must be misunderstood, must be hated, must be feared. Perhaps at that point, in that moment, they can finally do true good for the world. Free of accolades. Free of spotlights. Free of the support of the masses of the world. Free to act regardless of consequences." Now, even if we leave aside how easy it is to picture that being posted as self-justification by some knucklehead on Parler in the wake of the Capitol SAPFU, it's missing a bit at the end, isn't it? You can certainly argue that it's heroic to act regardless of the consequences *for yourself*. But someone who acts regardless of the consequences full stop isn't a hero – they're an impulsive fuckwit.

Perhaps worse, given those tempting Ross covers must have been a big part of the appeal – the art isn't all that either. One doesn't expect Ross to do whole interiors himself very often, and even when he does, the results can be stilted and excessively classicist. Normally, though, he chooses as his representative on Earth someone like Astro City's Brent Anderson, who conveys an impression of the same sheen and stature while being a lot quicker and lighter on his feet. Here...the characters often look a bit melted. Hell, even the lettering is worthy of mention in a bad way, which is something that really shouldn't happen in a professional comic – the first time we get a group scene with the heroes, the placement of the speech balloons makes it unclear both who's saying what, and in which order to read them. The most frustrating thing of all, though, is that this comic is so inept in so many ways, and yet never quite manages to cross the line which would make it bad enough to be funny. Well, not in the story proper, at least. Because in the back, there are Ross' designs for the characters in their original Golden Age forms, and oh boy. For starters, if you thought the main protagonists were half-arsed, the guys who didn't make the cut make them look like classics. Martin The Marvel Man! Brad Spencer, Wonderman! One of them is simply called Jack! And particularly the ones with kid sidekicks...yes, we've all heard the jokes, and not to be too Wertham about it, but the pictures of Samson and David, or V-Man and the V-Boys, look like something which would be presented by the prosecution after the NAMBLA Hallowe'en party. Which is to say, way more entertaining than anything else in this farrago.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up on sale recently. This is a tale involving Golden Age heroes that are in the public domain and are not actively published by the Big Two. I read the original stories off the shelf as they came out, but the story didn't really grab me back then. It's aged well, but perhaps it also benefits from being able to read them all at once.

Anyway, Krueger and Ross put together a great tale of betrayal and deception that frighteningly proves the old adage "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". It centers around The Fighting Yank and his actions both during and after WWII. I won't go into spoilers, but it is safe to say that surprises leap off the page, alliances are shattered and you are not going to believe how certain heroes and their legacies are twisted up into something that goes beyond corruption.

For the completist, there are dozens of pages of behind-the-scenes artwork and a full set of reference portraits for each character that appears or is referenced in this series. There is also a full set of the Fighting Yank's journal entries that give background on the major characters.

Highly recommended for fans of the Golden Age of comics, Jim Krueger and Alex Ross.

Find it! Buy it! READ IT!

[Judah Radd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ehhhh just don’t.

I didn’t **hate** it, but I didn’t really enjoy it. The writing is bad, and while the art is awesome, it’s just too damn confusing to really enjoy. There are like 50 billion characters, we we pretty much meet them all at once. We spend very, very little time getting to know them, and the plot doesn’t have enough time to develop before we’re balls deep into something nobody took the time to make us care about.

The concept is really neat; obscure, public domain golden age heroes getting back together. I love it. The execution is mind numbing and insubstantial.

[Murphy C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it years ago. I remember thinking that Alex Ross is a phenomenal artist, but that doesn't automatically make a person a writer.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Golden age comic book characters, but this revival was a bit of a train wreck.
The cast is too big, and get introduced so fast that very few of them get more than a basic personality.
We skip from the end of WW2 to now with very little information on what happened in between. Heroes get altered, pretty much randomly, with no explaination besides some kind of vague magic ( though we the readers know it's because the writer doesn't want two dozen guys with no super powers running around) and with the little information and the fact that these are not big name heroes any twist in the story is met with a shrug.

Great art and some cool fight scenes, but it all feels a bit flat. Alex Ross is a great artist, but a so-so writer and he and his writing partner seem to be doing the same thing they did with their 'Earth X' story for marvel. It all feels too rushed and trying too hard to be epic.

Alan Moore did it better in 'Terra Obscura'.

Shame as there are some great old characters here that deserve to become fan favorites, but this series doesn't do them justice.

[Emmett Spain · Rating 1 out of 5]

An over reliance on telling, characters we are given no reason to care about, and a story which makes one wonder why they bothered. It's clear this was intended as the vehicle for a new universe, but all involved forgot one thing: if we're given no reason to care about the characters, then you've got nothing at all, no matter how you might try and dress it up. Check out Krueger and Ross's other team up, Justice, which is far better.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really good read by Alex Ross and company where they resurrect long-defunct (now) public domain characters from the Golden Age of Comics. Marvel also did something similar in The Twelve, and it smokes this series. I wish that Alex Ross did the interior art too, but that would probably take him years to paint 8 issues’ worth of story. This title is definitely made for the trade, and when read in one sitting like I did, it makes for a satisfying read. In monthly intervals, who knows? I have issues with this book as a book. First off, it really is a pretty book to look at. I have been spoiled by Marvel, as they have a nice thick waxy coating on their hardbacks and dustjackets alike. Dynamite has "fancier" production values, with only certain sections of the dustjacket offering a silk-screened image of sorts. DC also does this, and I hate it, as the remaining surface (and the image itself) are very easily scratched and damaged. Once the dustjacket is removed, you are treated to a beautiful wraparound Alex Ross painting, easily the most beautiful cover art for a book on the book itself that I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it is also not coated, and very easily scratched and damaged. I am not rough on my books, but am unhappy about this because one of the allures of trades (and more importantly expensive hardcovers) is the durability vs. the floppies (or single comics). The binding is glued, something that boils my blood on hardcovers. Binding on hardcovers should be sewn so that the book lays flat comfortably in one hand, the way God intended. This book, like most glued hardcovers that seem to litter this field, does lay flat in one hand a little bit in. Marvel has slowly moved into sewn binding for it's Masterworks, Omnibus, and now select Premiere hardcovers, and I wish that it were company policy to do so, but I digress. I wish that Dyamnite and every other company would do away with the devil that is glued binding on hardcovers. Also, hardcovers should be shrink wrapped! Most companies seal their hardcovers and so should Dynamite. Not to end this review on a negative note, the extras are amazing. I generally don't care for extras per se', but the character sketches and character galleries are very very cool. They show some characters who are not even in the series yet, and I would love to see them at some point in time (and I am sure that we will, with all of the related series spin-offs out there). The most interesting thing to me is the color guide by Alex Ross shown for comparison to a finished page. It is done in old fashioned flat four-color style, and I would pay to see this entire book re-colored like that. It's amazing and looks vintage, and I feel that this style might better serve the flavor of this series.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Project Superpowers is like the ditchweed of genre. It's using all the leftovers from public domain to make a story. It's been done worse--but this is a team who has done Kingdom Come, Earth X, Justice, etc. It's also a lot of underrated writers (Kreuger, Phil Hester, Joe Casey, etc) trying to do the best the can with meager materials. As such, it can be very ambitious and fail to land successfully as the character have little to no resonance.

Project Superpowers Vol. 1--A Dynamite Attempt to force disparate characters into the narrative f a universe. This is a Kreuger/Ross project and it's already showing that lightning doens't always strike twice. It's not bad--but nowhere near as satisfying as their previous efforts. It's staunchly classicst however, and as such a bit dull for me. Very much "your grandpa's superpower with slightly better art"


Project Superoiwers: Meet the Bad Guys--Basically an exercise to let Joe Casey write quick-one off storeies in an age of decompression and "mega arcs". It's completely fine Yeoman work, but there's not meat.

Black Terror--TBR

Death Defying Devil--Interlude between Chapter 1 and 2. It's largely a way to reintroduce more Golden Age characters. It's The DDD and friends vs. The Claw. The God of Hate, and false identities/impostors.

Masquerade--TBR

The Owl--TBR

Project Superpower Chapter Two--The fight is taken to the Supremacy, the shadowy cabal that truly run the world. This is actually a longer story and a bit more nuanced--there are multiple foes and plot developments (i.e. The Klaw, The Supremacy and Zeus. I actually feel that they where hitting the potential and stride with this every expanding story.

Blackcross--I consider this a sort of pseudo-sequel rather than a reboot. The notion that after the superheroes take of the the United States, they are once again trapped in the Urn.

Hero Killers


Project Superpowers Chapter Three

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curiosidade matou o gato. É o que dizem né? Não que eu esteja me sentindo um gato, mas a minha expectativa era uma gatinha bem sensual para esse quadrinho. Ele pega super-heróis da Era de Ouro das histórias em quadrinhos americanas que estão em domínio público e desenvolve uma trama envolvendo todos eles. Ou, pelo menos, os principais deles, que ainda são, de alguma forma conhecidos por parte do público de super-heróis. Mas, na minha opinião, o tiro saiu pela culatra. Apesar da arte ser maravilhosa e as cores serem bastante caprichadas, o roteiro não é lá muito original. Ele também busca atualizar os super-heróis "clássicos" para os nossos tempos. E, para aqueles que puderam ler Vingadores/Invasores, da mesma equipe criativa de Jim Krueger e Alex Ross vai perceber que originalidade não é bem um forte deles dois, pois no enredo também existe uma rebelião das máquinas. A principal diferença é a arte. Projeto Superpowers possui um cuidado na arte muito superior à minissérie da Marvel. Isso é uma pena porque essa ideia renderia grandes histórias. Mas, como os heróis estão em domínio público, nada impede que outras pessoas usem essas propriedades intelectuais para desenvolver melhores histórias.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d put this around 3.5 stars, but I really like the design of the book and the featured extras, so that bumped it up to a 4.

The story itself starts strong, but is struggling by the latter parts of the book. The premise and plot are excellent (co-plotted by Alex Ross, that explains that), the actual Jim Krueger script not quite as good. The art was similar. Layouts were great (Alex Ross of course), the Sadowski art in Issue 0 also excellent, the art from issues 1-7 by Carlos Paul was just OK.
I’m a sucker for Golden Age heroes so loved the setup and characters, I just wish there had been more meat on the bone.

The covers and extras are excellent though.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book, but they've jammed too many characters into it. Most of them don't get any development at all. And the plot is kind of a mess. There are some really good ideas in here, but it doesn't all come together. I guess the purpose of this was to kick off a whole "Project Superpowers" line of books, so maybe that was the reason they've jammed so much into it.
I really do love Alex Ross, both his artwork and his passion for this kind of niche stuff. So I definitely did enjoy reading this.

[Martti · Rating 1 out of 5]

This has so many random things happen to random people that get no backstory or much reasoning that I just cannot even ...

Part of a large graphic novel Humble Bundle I got a while back, trying to justify the buy and actually read it rather than just forgetting it to the dusty disk in the corner. Great value plus support charity. Thank you Humble Bundle!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/bo...

[Jamie Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. No serious problems. I liked it all just nothing stood out as particularly well done. I finish the series I think. I like the idea of golden age heroes coming to the modern world. Although with so many characters and not so much story left I’m not sure they will explore much of that. Anyway 4 stars.

[Joe Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept is great and issue 0 is nice, but it all goes downhill from there. The art is just bad and you never really understand who many of the characters are. In the end it just looks like a bad art project.

[Richard Gombert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not feel this story was as good as it could have been.

[Adrian Bloxham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another take on superheroes that probably goes on forever. This first volume is emough for me, well written and drawn but still - it's superheroes...not for me

[Edd Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Weak 3/5 Graphic Novel

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superheroes are definitely popular right now, and as a result, a lot of publishers are bringing back some of their classic heroes for the Golden and Silvery Ages of Comics. With this book, which binds the first 7 issues of a new series, Dynamite Entertainment is reintroducing a number of the heroes that were popular during the World War II period.

Pandora's Box plays a major role in setting up this storyline. Shortly after the war, the Fighting Yank, along with an advising spectral ancestor from the Revolutionary War period, tricked his hero allies and captured them in an ancient jar that really was Pandora's Box.

Now, the world is faced with all sorts of problems, and The Fighting Yank has been warned that they only way to save the world is to release his former friends while knowing they are not likely to be too happy with them. The Fighting Yank always struggled with his ancestor's advice, and now it is more challenging as he is also haunted by the American Spirit, a new mysterious ghost that is haunting him.

Upon breaking Pandora's Box, the Yank is disappointed to find that his former friends aren't immediately freed, but they slowly start to appear, scattered all over the globe. With the help of the Green Lama, the Yank is able to reassemble old allies and new as they take on an evil zombie army that has been assigned to destroy them. The army had actually been designed to stop the horrors of warfare by continuously reusing the bodies of those who fall in battle.

The artwork and the storyline is definitely up to par, placing it in the same level of quality that pieces produced by Marvel and DC.

I am really looking forward to reading the next installment. This series is really worth a try for superhero fans. It also is a good try for those who enjoyed Watchmen.

[47Time · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story has an old vibe to it and sometimes it jumps all over the place with no preamble. It begins in a corny and unoriginal fashion by recycling the story of Pandora's box during a World War 2 setting. The text is more fitting for a 70's comic with plenty of monologue explaining what's happening and cringe-worthy, melodramatic dialogue apparently taken from golden age comics that just doesn't flow like normal speech. At least the artwork is ok, but even there it has plenty of exagerrated poses and features.

Apparently, the bad things unleashed from the box were being slowly recaptured naturally and Hitler decided to reopen it. The solution is presented to American hero Fighting Yank who is given the task of reimprisoning the evil back in the box. Unfortunately, he also has to imprison Hope, personified by his superhero friends. In his old age he is approched by demons from his past and he sets off to free the heroes from imprisonment, but that creates new complications.

Bottom line is these characters should have stayed in the golden age of comics. The modern artwork does little to save boring characters in a boring story.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is a bit weird but it got me into Public Domain heroes. If you are into golden age heroes or an Alex Ross fan then this is a must own. It features characters mostly from Nedor and Lev Gleeson comics. It starts off with an elderly fighting Yank reflecting having to surrender his fellow heroes and friends to the government they ve been trapped in time via an urn. Soon are all released into the 21st century and having to adapt and deal witn new enemies. Black Terror,Devil,Owl and Masquerade got tie in series they were ok but felt rushed. Sadly the current Devil and Black Terror series by Gail Simone and Max Beamis are terrible its a shame both characters could have good modern stories and dynimate still seems to have plans with them so who knows. After reading this I came across the protectors from Malibu comics which also used public domain heroes. It would have been nice if Ross and Kruger included more centaur characters but we did get the Arrow and Man of War

[Rich Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond that fact that this book has some truly beautiful artwork, this has also an excellent story, utilizing some characters that most folks nowadays won't have a prayer of recognizing. Most of the characters in Project Superpowers were previously published in the forties and fifties by comic book companies that are long since defunct, such as Lev Gleason and Nedor. Silver Streak, the Green Lama, the Fighting Yank, the original Daredevil (called the Death-Defying Devil here) and many more have been brought together for a radical revamping that actually works. This is the team behind Marvel Comics' Earth X series, and Alex Ross provides the covers and a sheaf of background drawings.

Definitely recommended!

[Becky Churchman · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this was entertaining and had a very interesting plot, I was a tad disappointed. This was only because I'm a huge fan of Alex Ross, and I was originally led to believe that the artwork within would be his. It was not. The covers were done by him, but other artists contributed to the actual storyline. I am not bashing these artists at all since the artwork was still good. I was just expecting something done by Ross! Other than that, it's so funny to see Golden Age-styled superheroes in the twenty-first century. Just shows how our styles and preferences have changed...and how classic Superman's design is!

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the same people who did "Kingdom Come" have collected a bunch of Golden Age super heroes in one book. The plot involves the Fighting Yank, who betrayed his fellow superheroes after WWII and brings them back 50 years later to absolve his guilt. Lots of characters and settings and excitement.

I really liked the artwork, especially the hero retro stuff by Alex Ross which look like WWII propaganda posters. The story is good but the storytelling can be jarring, as the point of view can change from page to page without any type of transition.

Bringing back the Golden Age heroes is a cool idea. It's a good setup for a limited series.

[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was going to be pretty good. Superheroes are big right now since watchmen is coming to theaters. I was disappointed. There are so many characters, I can't even remember them! And they have the dumbest names. It shouldn't be a graphic novel cause it or doesn't have any blood at all or language or any other stuff a GRAPHIC novel should have. But it passes time and It will prevent you from getting bored. Check it out of the library or something or don't even look at it.

[Hazel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was pretty bad. The artwork is good, but the story is absolute crap. The old man's reflection at the beginning is poorly done. The characters get introduced in rapid succession with no development. It glazes over their world war 2 era, and blasts through the present time. Everything is just too condensed, and the writing is not all that great. If you can find it cheap like I did it might be worth it to get it so you can cut out some of the full page spreads and put them on your walls, because the book is pretty.