Picture the scene: somewhere in the worst parts of the west side of Chicago, a drug deal is going down at a cheap motel. One thing: one of the guys is an undercover cop, and he’s got a lot of his compatriots waiting in the next room, just in case things get ugly. What no one knows is that this is going to be a rip, which is what happens when the bad guys just take the money-man’s cash and kill him. Shit goes wrong. Bullets fly. People die. And the undercover guy’s team comes crashing in.
One of his team is Pheadra Huff, and she’s so overcome with adrenaline that she develops super speed and the ability to wave her arms and knock people down with an invisible force. Yes, Ms. Huff has just learned that she is a superhero, and she can’t wait to use her powers in the fight against crime.
A noble thought. Not exactly a new one, but still pretty noble. Here’s the problem: the action is so slapdash it’s hard to figure out what’s going on. In fact, when Huff discovers her super abilities, it’s hard to tell what exactly she has done. The other unfortunate thing is how, at the end of the book, we meet the rest of Huff’s department, and they’re the usual stereotypical cops from the catty department rival to the angry police chief. The creators of this book all but put doughnuts all over the place.
Lastly, writer Yorli Huff has an unfortunate relationship with spelling. Not typos, SPELLING. She thinks “serenity” is “sirenity” and “all right” is “alright.” “Toss” is “tose.” You get the idea. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with punctuation, either, but so it goes with some books.
One more thing: she has a problem with her narrative style. She’s trying to get the reader to experience things through the undercover cop’s inner thoughts, as well as Huff’s, when they’re both in action sequences. But comics are a visual art form. The illustrations already puts the reader into the action. When done properly (which it was here), the reader doesn’t need to be told the character’s adrenaline is pumping. The reader gets this intuitively. The words here serve only to take the reader out of the action.
The writing problems aside, the book is very attractive. Derrell Spicy knows what he’s doing. The bad guys look creepy enough, the good guys look perfectly tough and righteous. The action is a bit muddled, but it gets the point across.
This isn’t a bad book. It has a lot of potential. The story could go someplace awesome, if Huff (the writer) would back off on the stereotype and let Spicy lead the reader around a bit more. Perhaps next issue, things will go a bit better.
SUPERHERO HUFF #1
Writer: Yorli Huff
Artist: Derrell Spicy
Publisher: Engengering Strength
22 pages
$4.95
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