Adventureman vol. 1: The End and Everything After

Adventureman was once the greatest hero of his time.  He and the likes of The Gentleman, Ace Aviatrix Sally Sweet, Phaedra Phantom, The Gentleman, and more had protected our world from the likes of Baron Bizarre and his henchman until they didn’t.  At least, that’s what the books read by Claire Connell and her son Tommy told them as they were read in the present day.  Tommy believed in them, but former cop turned bookstore owner Claire knew better; that is, until she had a close encounter with some mysterious characters that led her to a building that wasn’t there and got her to believe otherwise.  Now she’s taller, stronger, denser, and able to do feats she could only imagine before, making this former black sheep of her family our last hope in fending off the threats of a pulp age once thought long gone.

“Adventureman” is trying to be a revival of the pulp hero archetypes that dominated popular fiction back in the Golden Age of Comics (see 1920-1940).  That said, it’s trying a very familiar revival of said archetypes in the modern age by way of their interaction and embracing by way of Claire and her son.  Written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Terry Dodson, they’re given as slick, witty, and thoroughly modernized treatment as you could hope for from the writing down to the art.  Fraction gives us lots of likeable characters to embrace (and a wholehearted effort to make “What the butts?!” happen) while Dodson makes the meshing of modern and retro sensibilities of these eras a lovely thing to behold.

So yeah, I did enjoy this volume… in its paperback edition.  The first five issues of “Adventureman” collected here were originally collected in a hardcover edition that I avoided buying for years because Fraction’s output at Marvel (and in his creator-owned work) was so uneven.  Paying $13 for this edition as opposed to $25 feels a lot more right given its overall quality.  While Dodson’s art is legitimately great, the story being told has not only been done before but Fraction’s take doesn’t offer anything new on the idea of pulp ideas being retold in a modern setting.

To be fair, Fraction does offer a lot of solid details to make Claire’s story (and her son’s involvement) memorable despite its predictability.  That also goes for the over-the-top villainy seen in their pulp antagonists which is also deliciously rendered by Dodson as well.  This is all to say that, based on this first volume, I’m perfectly willing to keep following the adventures of Claire “Adventureman” Connell as they’re published in paperback form.  I know that her further adventures are advertised in oversized hardcover form at the end of this volume, but I just don’t feel that they’re fresh enough – based on what I’ve read here – to invest in that format.