Local Man vol. 1: Heartland

Jack Xavier had it all as Crossjack.  A superhero with the power to be skilled with whatever weapon he uses (except bows) he had fame and fortune as a member of the superhero team known as Third Gen.  Until it all came crashing down and he was kicked off the team.  Without anywhere else to turn, Jack heads back to his hometown of Farmington and his parents’ place to figure out what his next move is.  Which is going to be tough when Third Gen owns the rights to his image, everyone in town hates him, and his old has-been enemy Hodag shows up to settle old scores.  At least there’s no secret superhero conspiracy lurking beneath the town’s surface that’s ready to make Jack regret coming home…

“Local Man” comes to us from the writer of “Revival,” Tim Seely, and the writer of “Stray Dogs,” Tony Fleecs, who are also providing art for this series as well.  Fleece illustrates the present-day sequences with a straightforwardly grounded approach while Seely hams it up in the flashbacks, giving us a pastiche of “classic” 90’s Image style.  What they’re doing here is essentially a superhero version of the story where someone’s life gets screwed up and they return to their hometown to recover.  It’s not a bad idea, but it’s played as a real downer here with everyone hating on Jack for reasons unknown even before we get to really know him.  Not helping matters is the fact that our protagonist initially comes off as a schmuck who seems like he’s in this situation because of his own poor life choices.

“Heartland” does get better here as we get more familiar with the central mystery at the heart of this volume.  Jack also displays some basic competency about the situation, even if the creators make it clear that making bad decisions is a feature of his character, and not a bug.  The flashbacks are also fun and actually manage a nice balance of skewering the style of the time they’re evoking while also providing relevant backstory as well.  While I finished this volume feeling better about where it ended than where it started, I was still left feeling like this was kind of a low-key bummer of a read.  Maybe not bad enough to dissuade me from checking out vol. 2, but not good enough to say that everyone else should give this a look.