“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Uniques #1 (Extended Director’s Cut)

I usually grade first issue covers on a curve, since they promote the whole series, but this is still more poster than comic cover.

The Uniques #1 (Extended Director’s Cut)

Comfort & Adam (2014)

STORY/ART/LETTERING: Comfort Love & Adam Withers

COLOR SEPARATIONS: Sasha, Ron Keiser, Frank Rapoza, Johnny Bourlett, Krista Schuman, Joel Bartlett, John C.L. Jansen, M. Jessica Hunsberger, & Will Jones…did you really need THIS MANY PEOPLE to do 30 pages of separations?

EDITING/PROOFING: (here comes another long list) Chris Naudus, Ian Levenstein, David Jablonski, Corinne Roberts, Tesh Silver, Will Jones, and Stephan & Kathi Love

At a celebration ending the Cold War of this alternate timeline, a suicide bombing group of supervillains blow the place up. Two of the psychically powered heroes were mentally linked to their daughter, Hope, at the time, putting her in a coma for two years. When she awakens, the facility does pretty much everything wrong and the freaked out teen hero attempts to break out before being calmed down by one of her old friends, Countryman, who was on a mission during the event. Eventually reunited with her sister Conscience and old friends Kid Quick, Motherboard, and Motherboard’s mom, who convinces the facility to let Hope go home with them. However, someone has been shaping this new age and Hope, now the last psion after the death of her parents and every other telepath on the planet, is a threat to those plans. And Countryman is on their side.

What they got right: This is a 2014 comic (“remastered” from a 2008 comic) that takes place in a clearly alternate version of the mid 1990s, Present day is April 17, 1996 and the flashback is the same date in 1994. That gives them more opening to get away with certain things they want to do, by ignoring any modern day inventions they want but to introduce a similar device in this new timeline if they choose. I wonder if that’s when the writers got into comics? Hope’s patient number is 616, which could be a Marvel comics reference or a coincidence. Uniques are similar to the Ultras and metahumans, and they have a less insulting term for people without powers (Typic) than some I’ve seen. (Muggles just sounds like an insult, Harry Potter fans. Just admit it.) For an indie project the art is quite good.

What they got wrong: I don’t need to see the teenage girl’s butt to know she’s in the hospital without underwear due to being in a coma for two years. I’m hoping this isn’t a “former hero betrayed us” situation coming. Also, can we stop using movie references for our comics? “Remastered”. “Director’s Cut”. Those words work in Hollywood based on Hollywood terminology. Find a comic equivalent, industry.

What I think overall: It’s a good start and I wouldn’t mind seeing more issues of this story to form a stronger opinion.