Born with spina bifida, John Moore overcame his physical obstacles and grew up to become a brilliant inventor. Among his inventions was a powerful armour that turned him into the superhero Caliburn. His childhood friends watched as their friend amazed the world - until today, when Caliburn was found brutally murdered. Whodunit? His old pal Kasia thinks it was someone in their childhood club known as The Tin Can Society…
So basically this is a retelling of Watchmen: dead superhero, investigation by a moody character, the killer is in the victim’s former group. But… it’s not bad. Peter Warren and Francesco Mobili’s first issue has me hooked and I want to see where this 9 issue series goes.
Part of that is because the premise of Watchmen was always really appealing to me. I’m not a fan of the “classic”, mostly because I never jibed with Alan Moore’s convoluted prose and stodgy storytelling, but I always thought Watchmen in the hands of a better writer would actually live up to its rep. So I’m glad Warren is having a shot at the same kind of story - and pleased to see that he seems to be effectively pulling off a sleeker, more involving version of it in this series.
What I will give Moore is how good the Watchmen characters are and how none of the characters in The Tin Can Society come close to the brilliance of the least of them (Hooded Justice). Caliburn is the poor man’s Iron Man while Kasia, the Rorschach proxy, is awful - smoking in a school as an adult, wow what a rebel… She’s just trying too hard to seem cool in every scene, it’s sad.
Still, it’s early days and Warren sets the table efficiently in The Tin Can Society #1. Even if the characters aren’t memorable, the story is intriguing and the premise, if realised well, could make this a decent series - worth a look if subversive superhero stories are your bag.
No comments:
Post a Comment