The Heroes Union #1

The Heroes Union #1

Sitcomics 2021

Co-Plotted & Bookrunner Darin Henry

Co-Plotted & Written by Roger Stern

Pencilled by Ron Frenz

Inked by Sal Buscema & Chris Nye

Coloured by Glenn Whitmore

Lettered by Marshall Dillon

Now It Begins!

Naucrate the Auteur Cosmic - half the universe celebrates her genius, the other half cowers before her world-shattering power. And the only ones who can stop her are Earth's foremost super-group... The Heroes Union!

Now I’m a fan of the Blue Baron and I have been for a while now so that he’s back and leading The Heroes Union on binge worthy adventures is something I am all in for. This issue sees a new member joining the team and it is most definitely a trial by fire situation. I have missed these characters and these comics as it’s been much too long since I’ve had the pleasure to read their adventures. This is a great book that doesn’t waste time in getting the action rolling for as soon as Startup gets to the team's headquarters they receive a mission that takes the team to space. I like this because it is an oversized issue and it does have a complete story within these pages and in order to do this they needed to get this underway as quickly as possible.

I like 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 exceptionally well rendered. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we’re drawn into this beautifully.

I appreciate how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. As the layers open up and become explored this is where the characterisation, the plot twists and more take centre stage and these add depth, dimension and complexity to the story. What I really like about this is the fact that this issue establishes so much about this world and the universe it’s in. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.

I’m loving every single moment of the interiors here. The linework is utterly fantastic and I will say that the inking on top of the pencils is flawlessly done. You’d be hard pressed to know this wasn’t all done by one person. How we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail in the work that we see is fabulously rendered. That we see backgrounds being utilised to enhance and expand the moments as well as how we see 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 remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour is sensational. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great eye for how colour works.

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This is billed as binge worthy and it most certainly lives up to that descriptor. This oversized issue format is able to tell a complete story beautifully and it reads like you’d expect a regular single issue would, through the pacing and flow. With some great writing and strong characterisation amidst these classic comic book style interiors works perfectly to bring back that sense of fun and adventure that’s been missing for a long time now.