What would an intergalactic Neighborhood Association think about Prehistoric Bedrock? Hopefully, The Flintstones never find out. Then there’s new kids trying to be heroes in Project Superpowers: Hero Killers.
With Free Comic Book Day 2017 in the books, it’s time to get back to last week’s pull. And the best part of this batch of books was the statue Barney made for Fred’s birthday in The Flintstones.
Written by Mark Russell
Art by Steve Pugh and Chris Chuckry
The statue causes Fred and Wilma’s new neighbors to come out of the woodwork to complain about how the statue if bringing down their property values. It has nothing to do with Fred and Barney’s “lifestyle,” they explain, not at all. But they’d appreciate the statue coming down.
Meanwhile, the Great Gazoo gets called back to his home world of Las Vega as his bosses have decided to have the Intergalactic Homeowners Association to see if prehistoric Earth fits their criteria to see if they can be accepted into their club. If not, they’ll take care of the problem, by blowing the planet up.
Of all the satiric takes writer Mark Russell has unleashed with this book, the fight against the NIMBY set isn’t the most hard-hitting, but I’m sure it would hit close to home for anyone who’s had to deal with persnickety neighbors. Of course, Gazoo coming right out and calling that type of behavior evil may have been a bit more on the nose than we’re used to with this incarnation of The Flintstones, but it didn’t feel all that out of place.
The next issue of The Flintstones, apparently, is the last of this run, which is a shame, because Russell and artist Steve Pugh have been providing one of my favorite books of the last year.
Written by Ryan Browne
Art by Pete Woods
I was a big fan of Project Superpowers when Dynamite introduced the Jim Krueger/Alex Ross collaboration back in 2008, but I kind of lost track of it after a while. When I saw a new Project Superpowers book this week, I wanted to see if the story and characters were still as intriguing, despite the different creative team.
I was NOT expecting this. The Hero Killers miniseries is taking a much more “dark comedy” take on the concept than what Krueger and Ross did, with too many heroes in LIbertyville and not enough crime to go around. The heroes are bored and are going around doing whatever they can to make a name (and a buck) for themselves, even if it means busting crimes that are anything but. Enter a trio of kid sidekicks who find a true supervillain and desperately want to be taken seriously.
The latest entry in the Project Superpowers line seems like a winner so far, with a fun concept and a cast of characters that are somewhere between the bored future powers of Ross and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come and the hedonistic heroes in Garth Ennis’ The Boys. Maybe just more PG. I’m intrigued by where writer Ryan Browne is going to take this.
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