Julie Lavelle is a woman who is thoroughly conquering the game of life. Her husband Mitchell is a thriving, albeit cynical, independent technology expert, and their enthusiastic young daughter Anna is an avid fan of the many costumed superheroes, referred to in-story as “Ultras,” who have sprung up over the last five years. Anna’s favorite Ultra is Hope, the mysterious, silver-haired superheroine who protects and serves their neighborhood… who happens to be Julie’s alter-ego.
Only Helen, Julie’s best friend and fellow superheroine, knows that she and Hope are the same person, and she plans to keep it that way. But when a tragic accident forces Julie to reveal her secret identity and leaves her husband in a coma, she’s forced into battle with a terrifying new enemy; a children’s services agent willing to take her argument that the outed vigilante is a graver threat to her child than any member of Hope’s rouges’ gallery to family court. This is the emotionally-amped inciting incident of Hope, a six-issue limited series by Dirk Manning with illustration and lettering by K. Lynn Smith.
Manning is a regular attendant of a small anime convention that visits my area every year, and I got to talk with him after he noticed me eyeballing what would become my copy of Hope at his stand. Sitting alongside the rest of Manning’swork on a book rack, Hope looked like an outlier at first glance; Manning cut his teeth writing noir-inspired, horror-themed parables like Tales of Mr. Rhee and Nightmare World, all of which boast dark, macabre art styles and bone-chilling stories about the things that lurk beyond the safe confines of everyday reality. When I asked him about Hope, he assured me this superhero tale would be as harrowing as any of his other stories.
While Hope isn’t a horror story on paper, its central narrative is a terrifying one driven forward by a compelling cast of characters. The most engaging member of this ensemble is easily Julie herself. Within the first panels of its first issue, Hope clearly shows that Julie is a wife and mother first and a superhero second. Every choice Julie makes across her six-issue journey is guided by her love for her family, and the plot constantly finds new and creative ways to challenge how deep that love runs and what lines she’s willing to cross to get her daughter back.
The rest of Hope’s cast also does an excellent job of fleshing out the series’ central conflict while engaging in their own right. Characters like the previously mentioned Helen and Officer Paxton, a young police officer who’s witnessed Julie’s heroics firsthand, serve as Julie's stalwart allies, and each offers their own insightful perspective on the ethical and moral dilemmas raised by her public ordeal. Helen and Paxton’s support for Hope is countered by super-powered and dreadfully human adversaries alike, who dangle tempting but less-than-noble paths forward in front of Julie that she’s forced to stop and brood over, if only for a moment.
The emotional odyssey at the heart of Hope is also bolstered by its visuals. Smith, who has worked on various comics of varying genres, has a vivid, expressive style that compliments Hope’s feelings-driven, character-centric story. The color palette of every page acts as a mood ring that reflects Julie’s current emotions, burning bright and flickering out as her hopes are inflated or ruptured by each new plot development. Battles between heroes and villains might be a rarity in Hope, but the strength of the comic’s art turns every emotional gut punch into a blow that would fit into a giant comic crossover event finale.
Unfortunately, while the art in Hope is solid overall, it falls short in a few places. The comic’s panel layout never veers into any unexplored terrain, sticking to a functional but rather uninspired format and, in my opinion, missing some prime opportunities to show how upside-down Julie’s world is becoming. Some scenes come close to doing something interesting with the panels, including a scene where Julie comes dangerously close to putting the child service agent fighting to take Anna from her through a concrete wall, but Smith doesn’t get as avant-garde with it as they could have.
The character design is also less than whelming. All the heroes, villains, and background extras are fun to look at. Hope’s costume is beautiful in its simplicity. However, with the notable exception of Julie’s delightfully flamboyant archnemesis, an overgrown theater kid named The Drama King, none of Hope’s costumed personas didn't wow me as much as I would have liked.
Another element of Hope that fumbles a bit is its world-building. The setting will feel familiar to fans of the superhero genre, and most of its stand-out details revolve around the unique ways the law has adapted to accommodate and incorporate a growing population of superpowered vigilantes. Hope does some genuinely fun things with world-building by presenting the superhero community as a true community, complete with a communal lexicon, secret hangouts, and even a bit of factionalism between the Ultras who agreed to sign onto a government registry and those who didn’t (can I get an “oh, not again,” Marvel fans?)
The issue I have with Hope’s world-building doesn’t lie in what it is but in how it’s delivered to the reader. All too often, genuinely fascinating tidbits of lore about the law that allows superheroes to go unregistered or the anonymous, Ultra-enslaving criminal mastermind known as “The Final Boss” is dropped in painfully inorganic exposition dumps that pop up in the middle of dialogue like a whale about to sink a dingy. Even information about Julie’s personal life and backstory is delivered in ways that feel a bit robotic, dragging me out of scenes that, until then, I was seriously invested in.
With all that said, Hope is still a fun ride from start to finish. While the world-building and art don’t land as smoothly as I’d hoped they would, the incredibly emotional tale at the heart of its narrative kept me from putting the book down until I was done with it. While I won’t spoil the ending of this tale of superheroism and parenthood here, it did live up to another promise that Manning made to me while I thumbing through my copy of the book; as I read the final panel of the final page, I said (to no one in particular), “WHAT
THE HELL!?”
With Hope Volume 2: Masks set to release in early June, I can safely say that I plan on checking out the next chapter of the Lavelle family’s story.
Writer | Dirk Manning (http://www.dirkmanning.com/) |
|---|---|
Illustrator and Letterer | K. Lynn Smith (http://www.klynnsmith.net/) |
Editor | Drena Jo (Volume #1: Masks), Heather Antos (Source Point Press release) |
Publisher | Source Point Press (https://sourcepointpress.com/) |
Comments