Just finished the trade
E.V.I.L. Heroes, collecting the six-issue mini-series.
With great power... comes great corruption.
Superheroes are real. They walk the Earth as Gods among men. But the fairy tales of them protecting mankind and being heroes were all lies. Humans have become their slaves, fit only to serve their super-powered masters. But in man, the nature of the true hero still survives... and one group rises up to challenge their self-appointed masters.
Can they hope to succeed or will their opposition only push mankind closer to extinction?
Writing is by Joe Brusha. Art is (mostly) by Eric J, with additional work by Christian 'Crizam' Zamora, Gregbo Watson, and Sean Hill.
I'll just come right out and say it. This is a mess. It's derivative, it's poorly put together, and it's predictable. The front cover sledgehammers it home that this is Zenescopes 'bad Justice League', with its dramatic shot of not-Superman, not-Wonder Woman, and not-Aquaman (the rear cover adds not-Flash and not-Batman). The description on the back (above) tells you what to expect - and it's been done before, and better. Zenescope take DC's
Injustice: Gods Among Us, Earth-3 Crime Syndicate, and Project Cadmus, add in Marvel's
Squadron Supreme, and stuff it in a blender. Then they throw the whole thing at the wall in the hope that it sticks (it doesn't). There are echoes too of Dynamite's
Project Superpowers, as well as Alan Moore's 80s classic
Marvelman Miracleman*. Every one of these puts
E.V.I.L. Heroes in the shade (the only originality here is that whereas this kind of tale usually starts with the heroes having the best of intentions,
these characters are bad from the get-go).
Some other problems,
The resistance-heroes created to tackle the not-Justice League all dress exactly the same; it's like watching Power Rangers with them all wearing red. Telling them apart in the battle scenes, where you can't even always tell male from female (not usually a problem with Zenescope!), is really difficult
There are no introductory explanations of each of these resistance-heroes' powers (one of them is called 'Blaze', another's called 'Scorch'; I'm still not sure what the difference is). If you read Justice League or Avengers, when another member of the team arrives you think 'Good, he/she can do this/that! Now the bad guys are in trouble!'. There's none of that here. We haven't a clue who these people are or what they can do
The power levels of the not-Justice League are inconsistent (yes, that can happen under different writers, but you don't expect it in one six-issue story, written by the same person throughout)
All of Brusha's characterisations lack depth. He seems to try to create 'instant backstory' for a few, but it doesn't work. And because the characters are flat we don't care about them. And because we don't care, the stakes don't seem real and there's no tension. Yes, destruction of the Earth would be terrible, we all
know that, but Brusha doesn't make us
feel it. With any and every one of the similar-but-better works I mentioned, I cared. You'd never think that this was the writer who gave us the fantastic
Grimm Fairy Tales: Tarot.
As for the art, it's crude-looking and at times confusingly laid-out. Admittedly, the artists do a good job of matching styles so that the change from one to another doesn't jar; unfortunately, the result is that it's all equally bad. Figures, faces, and postures are all sub-par. These are professional people. I'm sure they're talented. So, what this all screams to me is...
... Rush-job.
DC's
Injustice: Gods Among Us game tie-in comic launched in Jan 2013, and ran until Sep 2016 to great acclaim (greater than many predicted). The success of the game and comic obviously pointed to follow-ups for both, and my guess is that Zenescope decided to jump in and fill the gap in the market between the first
Injustice comic ending and the inevitable second one starting.
E.V.I.L. Heroes debuted in August 2016 (sporting a cheeky cover reference to 'Gods among men'), a month before the first
Injustice comic finished, and ran until March 2017, a month before the follow-up
Injustice 2 commenced (with the
Injustice 2 game appearing the month after that), so it fits.
I've reviewed eight other Zenescope titles so far in this thread. I've rated them all 7/10 - 8/10 (mostly 7.5), and I've been only too happy to give praise where it's due. So I'm not going to shy away from condemning this shambles. Zenescope's fantasy and horror output is excellent. They should stick with that.
4/10
* There are others - but you get my point!
The zombies tick all the boxes for generic, shuffling undead, and the utter carnage Cindy dispenses is wonderfully over-the-top.
