heroes the untold story
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Heroes is the latest smash hit everyone's talking about american tv show, in which ordinary people suddenly find they have special powers. Whilst you might be able to pick up on the story from this if you've not seen the show I would recommend you go to the dvd for heroes season one reviews instead. Not least because the stories in this collection fill in a lot of untold information from the show, and you'll get more out of it if you've seen the programme.
Anyway, this collects online comic strips published whilst the first season was broadcast. There are roughly thirty four of them, all about five to six pages long, and they tell stories involving the characters and plots from the show. Some fill in things we didn't get to see on screen, like what hiro did when he first came back to tokyo after seeing the bomb go off, jessica and dl's crew on the safe cracking job, dl escaping from prison, and how future peter and niki got together.
Other stories fill in the past of hana, the mysterious lady who was seen in one episode and who can see e mails in her head, and what her past is and what she did next.
There's also another tale that tells you of the first connection between the linderman and petrelli families.
All stories begin with a comic style cover, and the art in each is different, but all of the visuals are pretty good.
the book runs to 234 pages in total, has an introduction by masi oka who plays hiro on screen, and an interview at the back with the writers of the comics.
It's a good sturdy and well bound hardback volume, and has a splendid painted cover on the dust jacket. Well worth a read if you're a fan.
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AMAZING
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This is incredible. A must have for all heroes fans. The graphics in the books are AMAZING. The stories are great, You find out about every thing that happens between the episodes of heroes you don't see. You find out how people meet and how people use thier powers in other ways. Do not miss this great deal. So GET IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Interesting But Not What Expected
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You get a lot of content for the discounted price ( 236 pages ), but this is very much a book of 2 halves - each of which is in many small pieces. Confused ? You may well be.
About half of the content is made up of 9th Wonder issues relating to the main characters, most of which consist of a cover and 4 pages. Almost none of these issues are connected to each other, so as independent stories they basically consist of situation > problem > superpower > moral / foreboding.
Some stories are new and supplement the tv show ( like Eden's past ), some are new but pointless ( reading minds helps fight crime - what a revelation ) and some are literally just recaps of events that happened in the tv show ( pah ).
The other half of the content is the story of Wireless, which includes a lengthy sub-story where she learns part of the Linderman's history. This is all new stuff, and may even impact on the show if the final teaser pages are anything to go by.
BUT I am not spoiling anything to say that Wirless is a smart, strong, independent female who can battle / seduce her way through armies of mere men - the sort of character you can find in just about any comic book or tv show in this post-Buffy era. Which is not to say her story is worthless, just that you shouldn't go in expecting anyone on par with Nikki / Jessica or Claire.
Both components of the volume are let down by two design factors :
1] The issues are ordered by release, so the stories are jumbled together chaotically. Wireless' story is interrupted by stand-alones at every turn, and stand-alones are ordered so that present, future and past events are shown with no thought to chronology. Many of the 9th Wonder covers also have little / no connection to the short story that follows.
I would certainly have preferred the Wireless arc had been compiled in to a seperate section at the least.
2] The art varies wildly, presumably because of the many artists contributing. Opinion of specific art is a matter of personal taste, but there is no denying that is plain odd to see the same characters appearing in multiple issues but drawn completely differently ( a particular issue with the Wireless arc which sees her vary between children's cartoon and near-realism ).
You will have to expect that, at some point in the collection, whichever characters you favor are likely to be drawn very ugly compared to their actors. Oh Milo, what have they done to ye ?! There are also original characters / versions of characters ( e.g. younger or older ) which you will have to recognize by name in some issues, because they bear little resemblence to their previous appearance.
In my view this squandered quite a lot of the potential of this collection, because at no point was it possible to believe that this is a collection of Isaac Mendez' comic books - he would have to have been the most schizophrenic artist that ever lived to amass this medley of styles. I think that it would have been more interesting / collectable for them to have gone all out on authenticity, but there is no sense of that at all.
Overall : 3 out of 5.
Read the whole collection and I do not think you will walk away disappointed, but there are individual issues within it that may well make you wonder why you are bothering.
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A must have for all heroes fans
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This book is amazing...i got it thinking it would just be a bunch of stories connected to heroes...but it is so much more, it's like a collection of all the copies of 9th Wonders we've never seen...ever wondered how the petrelli's are linked to Linderman, or how Eden came to exist? Any heroesfan will not be disappointed, it's like holding a piece of Isaac's work in your hands!!!
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