Casual Heroes

(Image, 1996)
™ and ©1996 Motown Machineworks

There have been super-hero comics for nearly 60 years. And there have been comics with maturity and wit at least since the early days of Love and Rockets. Casual Heroes, from Image’s Motown Machineworks imprint, boldly attempts to combine the two by introducing a team of “slacker heroes,” with all the problems, world-weary cynicism, and self-aware irony of the 90s generation.

Saturn Red uses his publicity status as a super-hero to bed as many women as possible and complains that super-villains come around every month like clockwork just to boost comic book sales. Deadbolt mocks stereotypes of black super-heroes as he clobbers a giant robot. Sabotage wonders if it’s too late to join the X-Men, then craves a cigarette after the big fight. The book is slickly executed in a clean, post-modern style by Kevin McCarthy and John Stangeland.

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Notes

Writer

Artist

#1

April, 1996
Cover Price: $2.25
5 copies available from $0.78

Kevin McCarthy