By orangerful

Caped
TPB
Created by Darin Moiselle & Josh Lobis
BY Josh Lobis, Darin Moiselle, Yair Herrera, Sebastian Piriz, Saumin Patel
BOOM! Studios
Release date: September 16, 2009

After a night of protecting the city from villains, when does a superhero find the time and energy to get his suit cleaned or polish up the super-mobile? Not every hero has a butler ready to pick up the drying cleaning — who are these unsung heroes that help keep these super men and women organized? That is the question that must have spawned the comic book series Caped, created by Darin Moiselle and Josh Lobis.

In this comic book series, mild mannered Jimmy Lohman just wants to be a reporter in Capital City. He tries to get his foot in the door by volunteering to be the assistant for the curmudgeonly writer of Action News, Grant Godfried. But Jimmy finds out that investigative journalism is just Grant’s day job — at night, he is The Edge, a superhero who dresses all in black and has blades attached to various parts of his uniform. But Jimmy is not there to be The Edge’s boy wonder; Godfried needs someone to help keep him organized, fill out expense reports, gas up the The Edge’s vehicles, and keep his personal life and super-life in order. It’s a bit more than Jimmy was prepared to handle, but after a night of crime-fighting with The Edge, he decides that the best way to get the story is to stay on as an assistant. And when a super-villain escapes from The League’s headquarters and the blame falls on The Edge, Jimmy becomes determined to clear his hero’s name.

Caped may take a few pages to really find its footing, but once Moiselle and Lobis figure out where they are going with the story, it’s a quick read. There are lots of humorous moments that remind you not to take this too seriously. The aging superhero and the young reporter make a good team and I could see them evolving into more 3-dimensional characters as newer issues are released. I wasn’t a big fan of the artwork in issues 1 and 2, the sketched style of Sebastian Piriz seemed a little too dark for this tongue-in-cheek series. I preferred issues 3 and 4, drawn by Renato Faccini, which was a more traditional comic book style that I felt made more sense for this concept.

Caped is good for a laugh, so if you need a break from some of the heavier stuff sitting on the superhero rack, it is a good one to pick up.