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Is It Good? Real Heroes #2 Review

Comic Books

Is It Good? Real Heroes #2 Review

Bryan Hitch’s great art and enjoyable (yet slightly derivative) story about a Hollywood super hero team having to play their roles for real is back for the second issue. Is it good?


Real Heroes #2 (Image Comics)


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real-heroes-2-cover

The issue begins with a brutal defeat of the ‘real’ Olympians being shown to the ones from L.A./our dimension. The man who spirited them away in the last issue then gives a dire warning that their most fearsome adversary is coming to kill them.

Sure enough, our plucky crew escapes right before Brainiac Brainchild blows up the building they had just been in. Once everyone gets to the main base, however, Hitch gives us a bit more information on where the story is going and why we should care.

For starters, the mysterious benefactor doesn’t want a bunch of Hollywood actors to take the place of his dimension’s superheroes (because that would be stupid). Instead, he simply asks them to pose as the deceased group in a recorded olive branch extension to Brainchild’s invaders.

The man also explains how he got the Fauxlympians into his dimension (some psudeo-science stuff with a key). Before a gaping plot hole can open up beneath the reader, however, Hitch deftly turns one of the first questions anyone would ask into an excellent story hook.

real-heroes-2-ship
…besides “Does Hasbro or Mattel own the toy license on you guys?”

As you might have guessed, the Fauxlympians attempt to record a message of peace is repaid with an ass kicking that leads to a hell of a cliffhanger.

Is It Good?

We’re still in Galaxy Quest territory, but Hitch did some nice things to make the story more his own. The question about the dimensional key (and how it was actually used) has the potential to inject this tale with a whole lot more intrigue and potential outcomes.

The characters’ voices are also starting to become clearer, although most of the team still veers towards the two dimensional side of things. The art, as expected, is fantastic…although I really wish Hitch would throttle back on his love of costumes that consist of layered triangular patterns.

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“Someone…please…call the fashion police!”

Overall, both the good and bad news is that we have no idea where this story is going. That makes the narrative feel unsteady, but it’s also a sign that what we’re reading won’t follow the path that everyone (myself included) was expecting.

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