Written by Justin Jordan
Illustrated by Tradd MooreLuther Strode is just your average nerd until he sends away for a bodybuilding course from an old comic book, one that works a whole lot better than he ever imagined. His newfound strength and strange talents make school a lot easier, but they’ve also caused some very, very bad people to take a very, very keen interest in him. Things will never be the same for Luther Strode…if he survives.
It feels like forever ago that we hyped the living hell out of this book (August 11th to be exact), and today, almost two months later The Strange Talent of Luther Strode is coming out finally.
Find out why it should definitely head home with you today after the jump.
Honest to goodness, completely fresh comic teams don’t pop up that often. If you think about it, most of the exciting launches from this year featured at least one person on their team that could be considered a “veteran” of the comic industry.
But with The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, you have a writer who has been trying for a very long time to make it, an artist who is fresh out of college and was found off of DeviantArt, and a colorist who is a friend of the writer but not someone who has worked in the industry significantly. This is about as new to the industry of a team as you can get these days.
I guess that is why this book is so surprising. Even though the team is new to the scene, the storytelling and craft on display in this first issue is on par with the work of the best and brightest the industry has to offer.
It starts at the top, as co-creator and writer Justin Jordan has taken two genres (slasher films and superhero comics) and melded them together to form something with roots in the old that somehow comes out as its entirely own thing. The concept is so simple yet so elegantly executed that it makes you wonder why it hasn’t come about before and thankful that it hadn’t so this book could stand on its own.
A big part of the reason why this books so well is Jordan’s characterization. While we recognize character archetypes from a variety of genres at work in these pages (the girl who likes the nerd even though she is way too hot for him, the bully who just can’t stop, the nerdy and chatty sidekick, the mother who is scared but just wants to protect her family), the way Jordan brings them to life doesn’t make them feel like stodgy forms of other characters but their own living, breathing identities. You can see why Luther adores Petra. You can see why he fears Jacobson. You can see people you know in Pete. You can see the real beneath them all, and it makes the story work all the better because of that.
At its core, though, you have Luther Strode, a nerdy guy who has aspirations for more and is willing to try gimmicks from ads to get there. While he’s cool at his core (and perhaps a little more brave than your average nerdy guy), he’s still unrecognized for that. Jordan doesn’t make him feel like a stereotype nor does he pander to his audience of potentially similar type folks. He makes him feel like some sort of folk hero – the guy the hot redhead goes for because he deserves her, the guy who fights back to the bully, the guy who protects his family. Luther alone is a great character, and reason enough to pick up the book.
Then you have the central storyline. Tying an Atlas Method-esque gimmick work-out to some sort of freaky society of slashers, led by a freakishly intense villain ominously named “The Librarian?” Gold mine. I dig the living hell out of the core of the story that Luther is getting himself into, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
Perhaps the biggest revelation of the issue is the outrageously great art of Tradd Moore. He’s not someone who has done anything before, but he immediately stands out amidst a year of exciting new entries to the comic art world as one of the best. Everything about the book, from the composition of the pages to the character work to the facial expressions and beyond, is pretty incredible. The thing that stands out the most for me though is his ability to visually tell the story. Many artists are good from a standpoint of making things look “pretty” at the very least, but their storytelling typically comes together more slowly. Moore excels at this from day one, as this book easily could be understood without words (a talent many veterans of not been able to grasp years into their career).
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I have to give a shout out to one panel in particular. The first panel on page 19 shows Luther catching a dodgeball that has been hurled at him by the aforementioned bully as he cares for his fallen friend, and the execution of it speaks volumes about what is going on. The transition of his preternatural skills coming to fore, the focus he has on his friend, and the seer velocity of the ball are all conveyed in fantastic ways. The part I enjoyed most was the sense of movement, as the ball is arriving from a land of blurred, rushed air before its ascent is rudely interrupted by Luther’s confident hand, removing all energy from the situation in his side of the world. Most excellent indeed.
Some may worry “well, what if they just ‘got lucky’ in the first issue?” What if it is Justin and Tradd’s (and the rest) destiny to tell one great issue and then fall off a cliff into mediocrity? The good news is I’ve read issue two and it is similarly excellent, and it pushes the story further while featuring all of the things that worked well in this issue.
The Strange Talent of Luther Strode is one of the strongest first issues of the year, and one of the strongest debuts by any creative team in recent memory. I’m really looking forward to seeing what other people think, but I can strongly believe that if you’re a fan of comics, you’ll love this.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Buy
