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I'm gonna take a break from the big guys for a bit here, as I occasionally like to do. As long time readers of the column know, I'm a huge fan of J. Michael Straczynski, and have defended some of his more controversial moves, from slipping in the possibility that there might be mystical totemic undertones to why Peter is Spider-Man, to rebooting Wonder Woman a year or two before DC took out the whole universe, to having the gall, the sheer gall!, to write new Watchmen comics.
About the only thing I don't defend is One More Day, but I still give credit to Joe making the best out of an editorial mandated bad situation. If you take it on its own, OMD isn't terrible, it's just not a Peter Parker appropriate story, in the end. But that's old, well-trodden ground.
After his work at DC ended rather abruptly, JMS went quiet, outside of occasional internet posts, and a few appearances here and there. However, the last few months have seen a bit of a resurgence of Joe, as a raft of titles have appeared on the stands all of a sudden. Many of which, with more to come, are part of his own Joe's Comics line through various companies, but he's also working on a new Twilight Zone comic, and a continuation of the Terminator mythos.
One of the more interesting entries in this return to form is Protectors Inc. from Image. The story takes place in a world largely like our own, and until World War II, there were no superpowers, that we know of. But suddenly a soldier gained powers, called himself the Patriot, and fought on the side of the Allies. Over the years, more and more people would appear with powers, but they were all good guys. Sure, some were jerks, but that's celebrity for ya, right?
Patriot faded away one day, a mystery to be solved, but otherwise the other superpowered people seem immortal, and their powers neverending. They generally do good works, protect the innocents, and occasionally have squabbles, which can cause more than their fair share of damage. Things change forever when a cop is assigned to investigate a dead Protector, something that everyone thought was impossible.
Now, a lot of this sounds like familiar territory. We've seen the 'superpowers in the real world' trope numerous times, almost having a new one every year. Even Joe has done this before, with Rising Stars. A mysterious event causes people to have powers, one of them mysteriously dies, and the book becomes a mystery to be solved, and unravel the secret history.
And that's really the biggest flaw of the title. This all feels familiar, overly so. Even to Joe's own work. If there weren't so many similar books, this would stand out more. As it is, there's little to give it a spotlight. The characters are based on all the old familiar archetypes, the story is, so far, familiar...it's a shame, really.
The characters are done well, for what they are. They don't quite escape their roots, but it is early days yet. A common method of writing is to take familiar character types and slowly build them into their own thing, which JMS is good at. Fortunately, the detective is the star of the book, and we get to see him explore this world for us, and that helps.
There's enough ideas here, and mysterious, that I'm still coming back, and Joe's good characterisation and witty way with words, and not to mention Gordon Purcell doing a solid job on the art, even if it harkens back to an earlier time, which I suspect is deliberate.
If you're looking for another take on what the real world might be like if superheroes suddenly appeared, you can do worse than this title. It's solid, but can't escape its feeling of been there, done that. And that's a shame.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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