Local Man #4 // Review
He’s just a guy in a coat and a pair of jeans, wearing a quarrel with arrows and a shovel in it. He’s delivering backstory exposition to a dog. And then someone shows up to make things complicated for him. He’s going to swim with that dog. And he’s going to end up in the lair of a supervillain with that dog. That’s what he does as Local Man #4 opens. Writers/artists Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs continue their superheroic semi-deconstruction with the aid of colorist Felipe Sobreiro. It’s kind of a fun journey with a man, his dog, and a whole lot of relatively well-rendered violence.
Two reasonably old guys fight for a few pages. One of them is known as the Camo Crusader. The other one is the title character. So it doesn’t look good for the Camo Crusader. Just because the guy with his name on the cover is likely to pull through doesn’t mean that things are going to be good for him. The general public likes the Crusader. They don’t know that he’s really a villain. Things won’t be easy for Local Man. He’s got a lot to deal with.
Seeley and Fleecs have a remarkably complicated story to render in between punches and swings and thrown shovels and things. Local Man and the Camo Crusader have a lot of history to go over as they beat the hell out of each other. And then, one of them is in a hospital bed a little later on, dealing with the implications of what he found out at the supervillain’s lair where it all took place. Seeley and Fleecs might be placing this moment a bit too early in the series. Action like this doesn’t feel natural with this much backstory being delivered. A scene like the one depicted for much of the run of this issue really SHOULD happen after certain revelations are made about the past. It seems a little rushed. There’s too much plot being carried by too much dialogue. Later on, there’s a retro story that’s meant to carry some more of the backstory, which feels like vintage Image.
The split between the first and second stories of the issue feels like it could be interesting if there was more of a contrast between the grittiness of the contemporary world of the middle-aged heroes and the vintage flashiness of the 1990s Youngblood-style superhero action of the heroes in their youth. The art is all very competent, and there is the occasional moment of intense combat, but it doesn’t add up to much. It’s too bad that there isn’t more of an impact with the art. A stronger contrast between the two ends of the story could give Local Man the punch it needs to really amplify the story.
Seeley and Fleecs are working on a premise that could still have some impact. The pacing may be off, but that’s a judgment that’s made only four issues into what is clearly a very, very dense story. When the dust clears on the first dozen or so issues of the series, it may turn out to be the case that there’s a kind of genius in the way that Seeley and Fleecs are approaching the story. Four issues in, it just feels like a mess.
