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The second volume of Heroes is here, and again I never read any of these online so these are all new to me. This features 46 complete stories inside, though some of these complete stories are part of a larger arc. Anyway, this volume is different from the first volume in that there is no introduction, foreword or any extras. I have to give the volume one praise before I start the reviews, the chapters and credits pages look like old 1960’s comics pages with the old ads and they look awesome. I won’t go through these issue by issue but rather story by story, and refer to each by their chapters. The chapters are broken up into blocks of four, with some of the four stories being complete arcs and some being 4 small single stories. Each of the blocks of 4 chapters have a Tim Sale painted “cover” shown before it.
-Chapters 35-38- This is the origin of the Haitian, as written by Joe Casey and illustrated by 4-different artists. So the Haitian had a father with powers but his father got pissed when the Haitian took his powers away. All in all, I didn’t think this was a remarkable story and didn’t add anything to the character of the Haitian.
-Chapters 39-42- This chronicles a girl named Betty, and her power of making people see different things and her powers cause ruin for two people in her high school. She has a Carrie-like moment in the gym and leaves vowing to start over, as a woman named Candice, we we’ve seen in the series and killed by Sylar.
-Chapters 43-46- Claude and a Company-Man look for a man who drains the water, and life, out of a person. There’s a twist, and a turn, and in the end Noah becomes Claude’s partner. Does it add to the Heroes mythos? Not really, but it was an entertaining story.
-Chapters 47-50- These four chapters comprise a Mohinder and an Ando two-parter which basically says you don’t need to have powers to be a hero. Ando helps out Hiro’s sister and Mohinder helps a man who controls electricity.
-Chapters 51-55- We get five one-shot chapters, looking at Maya, West, the Haitian (who returns to his homeland to purge his demons), Peter and Caitlin are in Ireland (and we have a legend of an Irish man whose powers are unlocked by a woman) and finally a Takezo/Hiro story told as cuddly animals. Very short looks at these characters.
-Chapters 56-59- We look at Molly’s dream of Sylar and cockroaches, Noah’s first mission where he shows how bright he is, a story of a quarantine after the virus is unleashed on the world and DL at the fire department training. Again, very short looks at our characters that really doesn’t add anything to the mythos but are enjoyable none the less.
-Chapters 60-64- Adam Monroe battles a multiple man in 1777, West meets Claire way before her move to LA when he was tagged by HRG and finally Elle’s first assignment is to track Claire and she does, but she is stopped by HRG right before homecoming. I liked the Elle story, and there’s loads of stories to be told about Monroe since he’s hundreds of years old.
-Chapters 65-68- HRG meets an old foe while he’s on the lam from the Company and even reports it to the Company, there’s an awesome Kensei story about his old brides, his old loves, and possibly a new bride that would save him? Could it be Daphne. Nope, probably just a plot thread that doesn’t go anywhere. There’s a man with a golden touch that shows up and it’s a wasted plot thread. Finally, Elle finds a boy with super-intelligence.
-Chapters 69-72- Elle’s super-smart boy continues its story, as he uploads all the content of the Company mainframe as Hana and Drucker try to break in. The boy is killed in the process of uploading the information by the company. That was a good two-parter. There’s a story about an Egyptian with royal lineage with powers and a boring story about Hiro’s sister.
-Chapters 73-76- A soldier back from the war kills a woman after his powers and finds Arthur Petrelli’s name in her book, so he’s after him. There’s a great story about how HRG came to need his glasses after taking out a powered guy who becomes light. There’s a Ben Franklin story and he may have had powers, after all, how did he absorb that lightning? The last chapter is about some guy dreaming of his past and the Indian boy we saw when Mohinder went to India helped him with his dreams.
-Chapters 77-80- A man who worked for Linderman wants revenge, a woman who can absorb people’s aura’s has her history revealed (she worked for the Co.), a girl remembers being abducted by the Company and the aura stealer returns to steal an old woman’s aura.
-The Bottom Line- The first volume was great in shedding light on the characters of the series, and expanding greatly on people we may have only seen once or twice. This volume does a complete 180 on Volume 1, focusing on people we’ve never seen before, and so far haven’t seen in the third Season. Whereas I felt the first Volume was written in conjunction with the show with the help of the show writers, this volume felt too separate, too far apart from the series. It could be the writer’s strike messed some of that up and caused this chasm, or it could just be the same lackluster writing that has hurt the show the past two seasons. Whatever the reason is, this is not a volume that would be highly recommended, unless you are a hardcore fan of the show. Otherwise, take a pass.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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