A kinder, gentler sort of superhero.
Note – this is a spoiler-free advance review of Huck #1, which will be released on Wednesday, November 18.
Writer Mark Millar seems to be on a quest to team up with every A-list artist in the comics industry, His latest creator-owned Image comic, Huck, pairs Millar with American Vampire co-creator Rafael Albuquerque. And while this series doesn’t stray too far from Millar’s recent superhero work, the combination of amazing visuals and earnest storytelling make this first issue well worth reading.
There’s been a pronounced change in the tone of Millar’s work over the past decade. Earlier projects like Wanted and The Ultimates had a decidedly cynical streak to them. It was Millar’s Captain America, after all, who uttered this infamous line:
In recent years, Millar has tackled the superhero genre from a much more positive and hopeful angle. Whether because he’s feeling nostalgia for the superhero stories of his childhood or just responding to an increasingly scary and unpredictable world, Millar’s new comics draw inspiration from the heroes of yore. His newer characters strive to do good and protect the innocent because that’s what heroes do and that’s all that needs to be said on the matter. That’s the sort of thinking Huck springs from. Like Superior before it, Huck is really just the tale of a person of great compassion being given great strength to match.
It’s reductive to describe this comic as “What if Forrest Gump had super-powers?”, but it sort of gets the point across. The titular character is a man of few words but blessed with superhuman strength and an apparently bottomless reservoir of kindness. His origins and parentage a mystery, Huck dedicates himself to using his strength to carry out at least one good deed a day and help the residents of an idyllic little Southern community. Those good deeds might involve rescuing people from imminent death or simply cutting a senior citizen’s grass. A premise like this could easily come across as trite or hokey, but there’s such an earnestness to the way Millar portrays Huck and the people around him that you can’t help but be charmed by the book.
What makes this series interesting is the shared responsibility the entire town has in Huck’s crusade. Every resident is united by a pact to keep Huck’s actions a secret and not expose their small-town hero to the eyes of the wider world. The town itself might be the second coming of Mayberry, but the book is also very mindful of the fact that a super-powered do-gooder is going to have a hard time keeping to themselves in an era of smartphones and 24-hour news cycles. Is it reasonable to expect a secret like that to stay secret in this day and age? And can Huck stay content operating on a local scale when he sees the horrors unfolding across the world on the nightly news? All of this feeds into what is a very straightforward but effective examination of what it means to be a hero and the costs involved.
This issue does stumble a little when it comes to drawing in a certain real-world event. Millar taps into the “superheroes as wish fulfillment” element by having Huck intervene and turn what became a horrific tragedy in our world into a minor footnote with a happy ending in Huck’s world. This sequence rings hollow as a result. This is one case where it probably would have been better to create a conflict inspired by real events rather than simply throw a fictional hero into the real world.
It’s been great seeing Albuquerque experiment outside the confines of American Vampire and play with his familiar style. Here, the artist smooths the angular edges of his style and opts for a more organic approach. There’s a Norman Rockwell quality to Huck and his surroundings that very much suits the tone of Millar’s writing. And even though the action is far more low-key than you’ll find in most superhero books, Albuquerque shows a tremendous flair for using body language and framing to create a sense of movement one the page. The opening sequence, which features Huck riding atop a truck, building momentum and then launching into a free-fall, is a captivating way to start off the issue. This sequence also tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the character with a minimum of dialogue. The art makes it clear that Huck is strong but not exactly Superman, that he’s brave and that he takes great joy in what he does.
Colorist Dave McCaig may be the real MVP of this issue, however. His lush depiction of a fading sun lighting up the countryside stands out as much as Albuquerque’s impeccable storytelling. The colors are crucial in generating that Rockwell-ian, heavily sentimental visual style. Thanks to McCaig, Huck’s world becomes a place the reader wants to live in.
Huck is the latest step in Mark Millar’s transition from dark, cynical superhero comics to optimistic, uplifting tales of noble do-gooders. Huck #1 deftly avoids being preachy or sappy and merely invites readers to become attached to Millar’s latest hero. The gorgeous visuals make it that much easier to fall in love with this book. Only when Huck tries too hard to reflect the real world does it briefly lose its way.
