Welcome to Tranquility #1

Released: December 6, 2006

Publisher: Wildstorm

Writer: Gail Simone

Penciler: Neil Googe

Cover: Neil Googe

 

 

When presented with the concept of Tranquility, a retirement town for superheroes, I was intrigued but ultimately couldn’t think of what they’d write about. Well, hilariousness stupid.

 

Simone does her absolute best work, among her other good styles, when she’s allowed to cut loose with her wit and comedic superheroics, like Deadpool or Secret Six. My extolment of Simone won’t reach the absurdity of calling her the next Jane Austen but her wit is pretty sharp.

 

Told mostly through the eyes of the town sheriff, not super-powered, who’s left to run around town cleaning up after all the senile and quarreling senior super-heroes and villains, the story is well grounded. The stereotypes play themselves well here, with rich but forgetful ex-fighter pilots, kooky old men in search of lost powers, and the clichéd (but great here) idea of the tough but gentlemanly and protective old roughnecks.

 

A story of two old arch-nemesis fighting over apples that fall into a neighbor’s yard is simply great comedy in the ‘Grumpy Old Men’ vein. But all of that doesn’t prove very intriguing story telling, I mean, how far can the quarrelsome comedy go?

 

The trick, Simone shows us, is to introduce young upstarts and troublesome super-youths like Emoticon: a character who speaks in Instant Messenger slang and wears a face covering visor that shows, well, emoticons (those little punctuation faces). Told you her wit was biting.

 

In the middle of all this we are given a murder, or maybe he just fell on his sword. Either way, the peaceful town just became anything but, as if we expected less. From the previews I’ve read, and posted on BK News, it looks like we’ve only scratched the surface of rusting heroes pining away their last days in Tranquility. This isn’t as funny as Deadpool yet (which had the greatest comedy comic ever among Simone’s run) this is a fine start.

 

Rating - 7