Grounded

(Image, 2005–2006)
™ and ©2005 Mark Sable

A boy named Jonathan desperately wants to believe he’s a super-hero, obsessively reads comic books, and acts out in potentially fatal ways (plotting to have his parents killed after a movie, blinding himself, exposing a spider to radiation, etc.) to give himself an origin and super-powers. He briefly finds happiness with a girl named Julie, who also likes dressing up, but it ends in tears when he tries the old reliable, jumping-off-the-roof gambit, with predictable results.

But he never gives up, and, when he enters high school… but that would ruin the only twist in Grounded, not that it’s ever less than obvious. It’s clear we’re supposed to admire our “hero’s” resolve, but on the page it reads more like a pathological delusion than determination.

While it’s certainly pretty and well written, it’s also decompressed storytelling at its most unnecessarily expanded. Surely, the creators could have firmly established their premise in 10 pages instead of 30 and then could’ve actually proceeded to tell their story.

— S.A. Bennett

Jump to issue: