FORMAT: HARDCOVER | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Adventureman is a cult pulp hero, square-jawed, blond-haired, well-muscled, big-hearted, and almost entirely irrelevant to the plot. Well for these first four collected issues at least. Instead, this is the story of ordinary bookshop owning, hearing-impaired, half-Jewish ex-cop everywoman Claire. To call Claire a Mary Sue would be unfair, sexist, and frustratingly accurate.
This comic is a story about story, about how legends interact with themselves. At least we think it is. By issue four it still isn’t quite clear where the plot is going. And this isn’t to say that Adventureman is slow-moving. In fact, quite the opposite. Issue one chucks so much plot at you, from both the past and the present, that it’s hard (and fruitless) to keep up. I counted the introduction of no less than 31 characters by page 34 (some who don’t appear again by issue four).
The frustrating thing is how much most of the backstory can be told in shorthand. Square-jawed hero of the early 20th century? Got it? Gang of eccentric fellow heroes? Logged. Bookstore owner obsessed with genre who is drawn into the mystery of whether Adventureman and co were real. What else?
To its credit, the art is incredible. Characters are very standard comics but lovingly thought out, with excellent distinctive quirks, but the stand-out is the backgrounds, rich with detail and an impressive sense of sweep in big action scenes or breathtaking landscapes.
As such, it’s disappointing that the storytelling doesn’t take a lead from the art. We get the sense that there are some great ideas in here, but the story is swamped by sheer weight of stuff, the broad sweep being crowded out by the detail in a story we possibly kind of already know.
