The 16th volume is the first installment of what is anticipated to be a long narrative about an obsessive collector of superhero and toy paraphernalia named Rusty Brown. His sole friend throughout his lonely life is Chalky White, who like Rusty, was once a boy fascinated by superheroes and their ability to protect the vulnerable. Unlike Rusty, though, Chalky gives up collecting comic book figures, marries, and starts a family. Yet, all this has yet to occur in the first installment, which is concerned primarily with setting up the characters and the scenery of Rusty's and Chalky's childhoods.

Our first introduction to Rusty is while he is lying in bed on a cold winter morning, saying "I love you" to an action figure doll of Supergirl while his father yells at him to shovel the snow on the driveway. This scene succinctly captures the psychological architecture within Rusty: a chubby little boy living with an uncaring father and whose consolation is a fantasy world where he has super powers.

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 5:09 PM  |