With a title like “All-America Comix”#1 it’s difficult not to conjure up some very specific imagery and some thoughts on what the book is about, especially with everything that’s going on in the world right now. The word “comix” evokes some very specific imagery of the raunchy, subversive, underground comic books that rose to prominence in the 1970’s. As a result, when I saw the title I was intrigued and interested. Was this comic going to be subversive and have something to say? Was it going to try and be controversial and shocking? Was it going to open my mind to the possibilities of what the medium can do?
The answer to all of those questions is: nope, not really.
Written by Joe CaseyCover by: Sonia Harris and Dustin Nguyen
Illustrated by Dustin Nguyen
Colored by Brad Simpson
Lettered by Rus Wooton
Her last name is VASQUEZ! Her first name…says it all! And when confronted with the hidden secret of the universe, you won’t believe the cosmic truth she uncovers! Brought to you by the Wildcats Version 3.0 team of JOE CASEY and DUSTIN NGUYEN-reunited for the first time in fifteen years!
If you’re a superhero fan you might be familiar with America Chavez, a Latina teenage superhero with incredible powers that came into existence in 2011. It was written by Joe Casey, drawn by Nick Dragotta, and went on to become a fairly decent hit for Marvel. “All-American Comix” introduces a character named America Vasquez, a Latina teenage superhero with incredible powers that was also written by Joe Casey. However, there’s no need to worry because America Vasquez is completely different from America Chavez in every way shape or form. Never mind that the two characters have similar powers, similar backgrounds, that Vasquez butts heads with obvious Thor and Captain America clones, and that she has a brief fight with a blatant rip off of Doctor Doom; they’re completely different.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Marvel decides to bring out an army of lawyers and sue.
All joking aside, the script for this book comes courtesy of the original creator of America Chavez: Joe Casey. This is not very good work and it’s safe to say it’s probably not his best.
Casy pushes the new America hard to really drive home the fact that she’s a teenager with a chip on her shoulder and doesn’t take any crap from anyone. It’s a character archetype that has been done before, often with great success, but it seems that Casey is trying a bit too hard to show the reader just how little crap Vasquez takes. There’s no attempt at building a backstory, very little motivation for the character to do what she does outside of the simple fact that she thinks she’s awesome, and not much of a personality outside of a distinct Millennial disdain for previous generations and young people catchphrases. All of this doesn’t make America Vasquez come off as edgy and awesome, it makes her come off as cringy and insufferable.
That’s not to say that “All-America Comix” has any bright spots. In fact, the way that Joe Casey and letterer Rus Wooton handle the exposition of the comic is kind of interesting. The creators decided to spice up the traditional captions by making them into faux social media posts. It’s a fun idea that has been explored in some other books, but this comic decides to take the idea farther than it’s ever gone and make the captions a concrete part of the story and part of America’s personality. Unfortunately, the creative team takes a good thing and ruins it by turning it into a silly gimmick. For starters, there is no explanation as to how the captions got there and the comic doesn’t take the time to show the main character using her phone or explain how she has the time to post things online. But the worst thing about the captions are just how awkward they feel. Just like the dialogue, the captions are an attempt to mimic how young people talk and stuff them with pointless emojis and pointless hashtags and if the main character’s personality and speech patterns didn’t make you dislike her, the captions will.
Continued belowIf the paragraph talking about the artwork for “All America Comix” looks a little short it’s simply because the artwork is good enough to not warrant a whole lot of discussion, even if it feels a little out of place. The pencils come courtesy of Dustin Nguyen and while it’s not a style that a lot of people would peg as an art style for superheroes, it tries its best and does a pretty good job. Nguyen has a loose, sketchy style that would be perfect for an indie book about some sort of slice of life subject, but this is a superhero book and the art doesn’t do a very good job showing crowded action scenes and fighting. Nguyen is very good at showing tiny emotional moments and his characters are beautifully expressive during the quiet moments of the story when the characters are just talking to each other. Also, without giving anything away, there’s a very trippy scene in the middle of the book that allows Nguyen and the colorist Brad Simpson to flex their creative muscle in a scene that is psychedelic, properly bizarre, and kind of terrifying. It’s artwork that is fun to look at, but feels like it should be in a different comic.
“All-America Comix” is not a good comic. The artwork tries and fails to prop up a sub par superhero story centered around an insufferable main character and bare bones plot. It might not be so bad if we were talking about an original character, but it turns out this entire book is filled with derivative copycats of better superheroes that you should be reading instead of this book.
Final Verdict: 4.5- Decent artwork and the potential for real life legal drama are the reasons why this final score isn’t any lower.
