Huck # 1-6
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colourist: Dave McCraig
Letterer: Nate Piekos
Review by Gregory Brothers
It is the debate that many of us have taken part of at some point in our life. What would you do if you had superpowers? Would you use them for good or evil? Would you relish the spotlight and use it to make money? Would you give back to the community that doesn’t understand you? Or perhaps you would work at a gas station in a small town and do a good deed everyday because that is how the orphanage that you grew up in raised you to act. If you chose the last option then you would find yourself in the world of Huck.
We are introduced to the title character not by anything he says, but instead by his actions as he returns a lost item to one of the towns newest residents. Through a conversation between her and one of the town’s long established residents it is revealed that the town as a whole knows about how special Huck is and what he does not only for the town but for other people. It is made abundantly clear to the towns newest resident that they prefer to keep it that way so that they can protect their own personal superhero from those who may try to take advantage of him. You get the sense from the dialogue around and about him as to what kind of man Huck is, and it in not until he utters his first words about half way through the first issue that those assumptions are confirmed as he asks and man he is about to punch to please remove his glasses. Alas even the best kept secrets eventually bubble their way to the top. And we begin our bigger adventure.
As Huck’s world expands we see him being asked to help people outside of his little town, while we see what the people living in his town had feared, people beginning to take advantage of his helpfulness. One of the main culprits are the politicians who are up for re-election and see Huck as a way to get more votes. At about the halfway point of the series there is a big reveal that makes you realize there is possibly more to the mild manner Huck than we have been exposed to. The last two issues show us some of the past that Huck did not know that he had, as his brother and mother are revealed along with what become the books main antagonist. The series ties up nicely and gives the reader some closure to the limited series while giving Millar enough to work with that he could easily pick up and continue the series down the road.
The art throughout the series is spectacular. The coloring is bright and brilliant throughout. The art is simple with the characters being detailed but the backgrounds in most panels are simple of lacking anything other than different colors. The detail on those characters within the panels really enhances the thoughts and actions creating a situation where words were not even necessary to move the story forward. The focused art within the panels that Huck is not in gives you the feel that the reader is seeing what Huck sees when he is looking around a room. One example is when having a confrontation with a local street gang, when the thug pulls out a gun you see in a panel half of the person but the main focus is the thugs words and the gun that he has pulled out giving you the sense of the danger.
The Verdict
Buy! Mark Millar does a brilliant job of telling a story of a simple man who has extraordinary powers. It starts out with a great slice of life feeling, growing that into a bigger world, but without the world changing events. It is something that any of the readers may struggle with should superpowers ever exist. Do you continue on with your life as it is, or do you use that power for a greater good. All six issues are available so you can go grab them, or you can wait a few months until the collected trade comes out in July. Either way I do think that the series benefits by being able to read all the issues together rather than waiting for each issue to come out. It allows the reader to delve all the way into a comic that is different than anything else they are most likely reading.
