Comic Review: Caped TPB (BOOM! Studios) By Rudy T.

And you think your job sucks?

Jimmy Lohman's come to Capital City with hopes of becoming the next big thing in the news biz but when every newspaper, tv station and website turn him down he jumps at the chance to become reporter Grant Godfried's assistant. His enthusiasm is short lived when he discovers he's just signed on to become assistant to the superhero known as Edge so in addition to answering phones and fetching lattes Jimmy's got to worry about keeping the hero from indulging in drunken karaoke, providing cover stories for stood up dates and making sure he has a spare set of keys to the Edgemobile. When one of the villainous Gemini brothers is murdered while in the custody of The League the surviving Gemini vows to blow up a building a day but Edge and Jimmy discover his plans delve deeper: murder superheroes when they're in their civilian identities. The more clues the duo tries to dig up the more the evidence points to Gemini having a partner...on the inside.




Caped by Darin Moiselle and Josh Lobis is an interesting story about the daily drudgery of being an assistant to a superhero who's humor is well balanced with the drama. Jimmy Lohman's beleagured character is resilient in the way that he adjusts to being constantly put into harm's way and still presses on to solve the case when even Edge feels all is lost. There were times where the story's humor reminded me of Drew Melbourne's ArchEnemies which I also really enjoyed. Herrara's art in the first two chapters really set the tone of the story and Piriz made an empressive effort to continue in the same tone while retaining his own style. I have a love/hate relationship with some books that take a tongue and cheek approach to superheroes. Hero Squared and the already mentioned ArchEnemies are examples of superhero satire done right and Marvel's Ultimate Adventures miniseries shows what happens when stories come up short but Caped was a comic that had a good tone to it and didn't try to buldgen the reader with joke after joke.

Extras: Character design sketches by Caleb Cleveland and Caped Inside Covers with blog-like monthly updates

Written by: Darin Moiselle and Josh Lobis

Art by: Yair Herrera and Sebastian Piriz

Covers by: Joe Quinones and Saumin Patel

8.5/10

Rudy T.
Staff Reviewer