Knighted #1

Knighted #1

AWA Upshot Studios 2021

Written by Gregg Hurwitz

Illustrated by Mark Texeira

Coloured by Brian Reber

Lettered by Andworld Design

Bob Ryder is a hapless bureaucrat whose bad luck streak comes to a crescendo when he accidentally kills the city's masked vigilante, The Knight. Oops. Now, Bob is forced to take on the mantle of the legendary hero before the city descends into chaos. Good thing he's got The Knight's former butler/assistant to show him the ropes.

This is set in the world of The Resistance. I like the idea of this because honestly it takes a universe that Straczynski has created and expands upon it, naturally meaning it doesn’t feel forced or that it just arbitrarily ended up there. AWA_Studios now has a bone-fide superhero style universe and it’s an interesting take on one to say the least and with a writer on Gregg’s level to take something so out of the ordinary, Bob’s origin, and make it work in the way that he does well it’s certainly exciting to say the least. Let’s face Bob is something of a Schmegegge, a loser who means well but doesn’t get it, and we see this right off the bat and it sets the tone for what we’re going to see out of him moving forward, or will we? Can a man gain confidence and change who he is fundamentally? We’ll see and I look forward to the journey Gregg has in store for us.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing the characters, the story and this world which they live in leaves us with the desire to see more.

I am impressed with the way that this is structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and evolve. How the layers open up avenues to be explored and the amount of depth, dimension and complexity they add to the story is fantastic! How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is immaculately achieved.

The interiors here are phenomenal. The linework is absolutely exquisite and with its varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work we see throughout is mindbogglingly brilliant! While we see a fifty fifty split of blanks and background filled panels I'd like to see more because when we see them and how they enhance and expand the moments is sensational. How they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a superb understanding of how colour works. I’m incredibly impressed with the work in the interiors and how we see the complete package is brilliantly rendered.

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I love the premise of what we see here. How the Knight and his legacy live on is a lot more interesting than a regular old legacy deal. This makes things that much more complicated and interesting and that is what helps to draw us back to see more. Well that and this amazing writing and complex characterisation that’s wrapped up in these bloody brilliant interiors.