Freshmen Volume 1

by Hugh Sterbakov, Leonard Kirk, Seth Green

The sold-out, critically acclaimed series co-created by Buffy and Austin Powers star Seth Green is collected in all its glory Meet the beautiful Puppeteer, the wistful Seductress, the desperate Wannabe, the wasted Intoxicator, the bickering Drama Twins, the overwhelmed Green Thumb, the snotty Squirrel and the obsessed Beaver. Extra goodies include the entire Freshmen Yearbook. Baron Von Sterbakov and Maestro Kirk deliver thrills, chills, spills and tons of laughs.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2006

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I picked this one up because it was co-written by Seth Green, and I was curious as to what sort of comic he would write.

Was it brilliant? No. But it was seriously good, especially as a debut. There was cleverness and originality. A cool take on the old trope of young kids getting superpowers.

Most importantly, it gave me several good laughs on a day when I needed a good laugh. That's worth a lot.

Also, the blurbs on the back of the book were really, really funny.

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Top Cow (Image Comics) comic books that made up volumes 1 and 2 of this very innovative series about a group of freshmen that get superpowers; and when I say superpowers I mean like being able to talk to plants, a belly rumbling vibration power, super farts(!), and more of that ilk. This was a fab read, surprisingly so, as teenage angst is taken to a whole new level! 8 out of 12.

2013 read

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did no one edit this before it got published? So many grammatical errors.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this series because Linsner did 2 versions of covers for #1 (well, he did one and they edited another for a con-exclusive)

[David Caldwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit it. I tried The Freshmen because of its connection with Seth Green. This is a collection of the first 6 issues of the comics and represents its first story arc.

The leader of the group is a huge comic book fan who missed out on getting any superpowers because he went out for pizza. The rest of the group gained powers based on what they were thinking at the moment the Ax-Cell-Erator exploded. The powers range from what you would expect in a comic book series to silly (borderline offensive even) powers. The hot girl who wants to be a therapist who can now jump into people's minds. The vegan who can now talk to plants (and is left with nothing he can eat).The overweight Amish boy who can cause earthquakes by shaking his belly. The foreign exchange student who seems to be turning into a squirrel. The emotionally distraught and relationship obsessed girl who can make anyone fall in love with her. The math genius who can make people drunk or hungover but only when he is in one of those conditions himself. The couple who can't decide whether they love or hate each other who now have tandem telekinetic powers. The school mascot, a beaver, who becomes a super-genius but is obsessed with dam building. A guy who becomes super sticky. Finally a guy receives enhancement to a certain appendage.

At times, this almost reads like a parody of superhero comics. All of the characters are trying to figure out how their powers is going to change their lives which are already confusing ehough. In fact their normal lives provide more challenges at times than the villians they are facing. While the stories are using geared towards the humorous, there are moments of real drama.

The artwork is comic book style. It is consistent throughout all the issues.This is always a good thing in a comic book series especially as you are trying to get used to new characters.

While there is a lot of language in the book it is censored out. there is a little black bar with bleep written over it that covers most of the word. this does seem to be a reasonable compromise between not using foul language and displaying how most college age people talk nowadays. Truthfully though, it gets a little annoying at times. Also annoying at times is the Intoxicator and Long Don characters with the constant alcohol/drug use and enhancement comments.

There are a couple of mistakes. One really annoys me. They used the wrong form of a very simple word. They used to instead of too. For anyone who needs to isn't sure there are 3 forms of the word that all sound the same. Two is the number and most people get this one right The other two seem to confuse people. Use to when you are going towards an actual place or object. Use too as an adverb meaning excessively. Example: I am going to give the medicine to the two too tense students.

Overall this is a nicely drawn graphic novel with some good laughs and dramatic moments. Parts seem to try a little too hard but is worth a read.

[Jana Tetzlaff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freshmen

I always have incredibly high expectations when it comes to any product put fourth by someone from the Whedonverse, and when one of the co-creators of a comic series is named as Seth Green, they set off like a sky rocket.

While I liked the premise and the very colourful artwork, I just didn’t connect with any of the protagonists, didn’t get sucked into the story, almost wrinkled my nose at the immaturity of some of the story’s aspects (ME?! Dismissing something as immature?! IMPOSSIBLE!) – but ultimately failed to fully appreciate the story because of Annalee Rogers and her big, enervating superiority complex. I got to severely disliking her condescending psychoanalysing of fellow freshmen early on and she didn’t redeem herself in my eyes by being some kind of here. I like myself a flawed hero, someone who is far from perfect, who has doubts, who makes mistakes, whose character is morally questionable, but Annalee was just too much to stomach, probably because I had sinking feeling that she was the hero readers were supposed to identify with. Well, no. scratch that, that was obviously Norrin, the only “hero” without superpowers. Still, Annalee’s ever appearance enraged me too much to enjoy the comic and to probably give it proper credit.

Seriously, the story is incredibly violent, the protagonists are pretty flawed, one and all, some aspects are whimsical and quite humorous – all attributes I usually adore in my reading. However, the most amusing parts were the endorsements by Sarah Michelle Gellar:

“If I ever were to read a comic it might be this one.” And one for the second volume “Freshman II? Why isn’t it called sophomores?”

And by Joss Whedon: “Super powered teens, angst, action and comedy…I don’t get it.”

This somehow doesn’t seem enough. If I treated “Freshmen” as an introductory Volume whose main purpose is in establishing the different characters, heroes and villains alike, I might feel inclined to pick up the second volume just to see where this is heading. I’m not so sure I will, though. Not if there are so many other series to catch up on. It’s a shame really, because the garishly colourful artwork is right up my alley. The colours almost hurt my eyes. :-)

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting spin on the super hero team book. A dozen freshmen get zapped with an energy beam and gain powers based on what they were thinking of at the time. A couple are played for laughs (like the boy who was thinking about squirrels), and a couple are actually pretty creative. Like the vegan who was wishing he could hear plants, only to learn that what they have to say is not pleasant (and it makes it really hard to eat them when they scream). They're led by a comic book nerd who is the only one without powers (because he was out eating pizza at the time of the event). The basics have potential. The story itself doesn't do too much out of the ordinary, and it never gets to the point of being as funny as it seems to want to be, but it also doesn't cross over into just being stupid.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story had some brilliant moments and some memorable characters, but it also had some dull moments, some odd narrative monologues that, despite making sense in the concept, were, nonethless, inefective at times.
I like how all the characters are misfits, in their own way, and I laughed with many of the scenes and, especially, with the powers of some of the super-heroes. But unfortunetly the story soon fell into the clutches of 'the common place' in super-hero comics, which I found a bit boring.
The inside art is pretty good, I really liked it, and the cover is magnificent.
Neverthless, that ending was pretty good and I might read the next installment, if I can get my hands on a copy.

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because I am a Seth Green fan-girl and I couldn't help it. It wasn't great, but it was cute.

The characters are a little generic, and some of the jokes relied a little too much on trashy humor that I just don't really appreciate. Due to the way the issues switch perspective this might have been better read serialized. I got confused a few times about who was talking.

Wasn't terribly impressed, but it wasn't bad. This was also one of those things where I felt like there were some tropes that I probably just don't get due to my lack of comic fandom - particularly super-hero stuff.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to really like this since I'm a big fan of Robot Chicken and this was co-created by Seth Green and a Blogger buddy liked it. I didn't hate it, but the problem is that this can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a parody or to be taken seriously. It's hard to take you seriously when you have a talking beaver and a guy whose "superpower" is having a 15-foot unit. There wasn't really time enough in the first 6 issues to really understand all the characters or their powers. I have the sequel so maybe that will flesh it out more and decide on a tone.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me a while to get into and I found the college/drug/sexual humor at times a bit silly, but overall this is a good solid superhero comic. There doesn't seem to be much depth to the characters at this point, but perhaps that will come further on in the series.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this is not at all what I expected, or precisely the sort of thing I expect from Seth Green. Either way, it was fun and surprising in a way and pretty interesting. Looking forward to picking up the second volume.

[Lasairfiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this series. It is fun. It isn't the type that I am going to go out and buy the individual issues but the volumes will go on my "buy eventually" list.

[Douglas Beagley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever ideas, nice art, good writing.

I think this suffered for me because I am so far from the target audience.

[Nicholas Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty stupid superhero comedy from Seth Green and friends. A bunch of freshmen are "overflow" students and end up being housed in a science classroom. A mad scientist nearby has an experiment go kaboom which gives each of the kids powers based on what they were thinking about/were afraid of at the time. The powers they receive are really random, though, and their connections to the kids are often quite weak. Some make sense, like a kid who is self-conscious about the size of his manhood who then gets an enormous and invincible wang, or the girl who wants romance and so gets the power to make anyone fall in love with her. Others are just stupid, like a fat Amish kid who can make earthquakes from wiggling his belly (I think this was just so they could do a bad Quaker joke), and a French playboy who is startled by a squirrel just as the explosion occurs and so he starts to... become a squirrel? Because he was scared of one?

Anyway, the mad scientist's stupidly named Ax-Cell-Erator is the machine that caused the mutations. He wants to use it to save people from cancer and other diseases because it can change people's bodies based on what they are thinking about (but if being scared of a squirrel makes you into a squirrel, would being scared of cancer make you into a tumor?). The scientist manipulates our gaggle of heroes to help him remake his machine, even at the cost of innocent lives, and when the heroes balk, the scientist conveniently has an army of super-strong frats who are immune to some of the heroes' powers (for reasons that are never explained) come out and kick butt.

The mad scientist's plot changes suddenly to poisoning the water supply with a cancer-causing agent so he can prove that his device can save people from cancer (because he can't find anyone with cancer or what????). His lunatic plan is so stupid that, when one of the heroes (the supposed leader) hears about it, he agrees to help the scientist carry out the crime! This after the mad scientist and his muscley minions almost killed one of the hero girls.

Basically the story makes no sense, and I guess super hero stories are often that way, but it still felt lazy to me. Some of the jokes land (the talking houseplants are sometimes pretty funny), some don't. Art is pretty good.

Then right in the back is a second story, all text, which did pretty much nothing for me.

Kind of fun, mostly shallow super hero stuff. Not really a recommendation.

[wbforeman]

Reading the reviews here most people pick this up because Seth Green was the co-writer or at least gave the initial idea and I read the first issue and I thought it was fine. The art isn’t bad or great. Too many dialogue word balloons. the problem is Superheroes are so well covered at Marvel and DC that it’s hard to make a superhero book that’s interesting outside of the big two and Marvel supplies plenty of teen angst superhero books like runaways or Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel. There are exceptions to the rule like invincible but because this book just looked average and there’s enough teenage angst comic books out there, especially from Marvel I didn’t feel compelled to finish it

[Zedsdead · Rating 2 out of 5]

A group of college freshmen is caught in the blast radius of an exploding Science Machine, which confers superpowers derived from whatever they happened to be thinking about at the moment of detonation.

It's a fun idea, and it's played pretty amusingly. The psych major becomes telepathic. The vegan gains the ability to talk to plants, which leaves him nothing to eat (plus it turns out plants tend to be selfish and neurotic.) The Bickering Screeching Nightmare Couple from Hell acquire telekinesis, but only when they're touching. The insecure girl can make people fall in love with her, the insecure boy has a 15-foot indestructible penis, and so on.

Sadly, Freshmen reads like enthusiastic but badly written fan fic. It falls all over itself delivering awkward pop culture references ("With great power comes...") The panels are LOADED with text, every point being repeated several times to make sure the reader doesn't miss a single thing. And in spite of the writer's determination to fire home every detail with an impact driver, the plotting is still scattershot.

....and uninspired. I enjoy frat-bashing as much as the next guy but selecting grinning frat dude bullies as the villains just seems lazy. The beautiful psych major naturally helps the fat girl overcome her self-loathing (because what fat girl wouldn't wallow in self-loathing AMIRITE?)

Why in hell does Freshmen give us a hero with an adamantium superdong on one hand and BLEEP OUT THE SWEARS on the other?? This drove me crazy. Who exactly is the audience supposed to be here?

[Keith Irwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a comic book collection about a group of Freshmen who get strange superpowers. This book's main flaw is that it tries to be too much all at once. It's trying to be funny and have action and have drama and get deep into the psyches of its characters. It winds up not doing any of it really well. A few of the funny bits are funny, but most of the jokes fall flat. The action is okay, but doesn't feel that exciting. The drama is hard to follow because there are too many characters to keep up with. The attempts to get more serious about the characterization are also similarly hampered. They keep changing who is narrating the comic and we just never really get that much depth on anyone as a result.

It's not a terrible series. It has a few genuinely good moments. But most of it is just too much all at once and it never quite comes together.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Do I think it will do it for a huge chunk of people? Not so much.


I liked the idea of a bunch of college freshmen suddenly having powers and having to cope. And they respond differently. Which is a huge plus in favor of this book.

However, do all elements really work together? No.

But overall while this is a bit of a choppy start I will withhold judgement until I have read the sequel.

[Albert Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshingly funny take on the super hero comics that we all grew up reading, or hearing about. What happens when Seth Green writes a comic? This happens.

You get a rag tag group of misfits who develop a power based on the last thing they were thinking about when the accident happened. The range of powers that they were able to come up with is astounding, and the used of the powers are pretty limited in most cases, but still hilarious.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a different group of superheroes! Fun read

[H. Givens · Rating 4 out of 5]

11/07/11

02/18/15: Reread before reading volume 2. Excellent two-volume story, creative and interesting with authentic emotions.

[Shawn Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

Awesome. Love the drama. Seth Green is a genius. Everything about this was excellent. A must read for everyone. Awesome

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.