Eclipse and Vega

(SSS, 2003-2004)
™ and © SSS

The cover looks like the debut issue of “Ms. Mystic and Power Girl,” but the insides leave no room for this error. Eclipse and Vega is a competently rendered but unexceptional super–hero comic book featuring two bimbos who are more about what’s in their bras than in their brains. When they’re not wearing the Spandex, it’s mini–dresses and bikinis galore. Their origin is a Marvel cliché, but this is playfully acknowledged by the women’s mentor, Dennis Colt, a retired super–hero. Oddly, Colt did not wear a blue suit and gloves (and no socks); he was the bizarrely named “Packaging Man.” This is because Dennis Colt is not named for The Spirit; he is named for creator Colt’s father (who, one would guess, worked in the packaging business?).

A plus: Canada needs more indigenous super–heroes. A minus: the characters occasionally speak in an unnatural, stilted fashion, eschewing contractions where normal people would use them. (A mini–minus: a really overt plug for a Cole’s comics shop smack dab in the middle of the story, but that’s understandable.) Make no mistake: Eclipse and Vega is fun. It’s wholesome despite the occasionally gratuitous art. (It’s not much more risqué than your average issue of Betty and Veronica.) But it’s also full of clichés. Acknowledging the clichés takes the edge off, perhaps, but they’re still clichés.

— Jack Abramowitz

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