Created, written & lettered by Ray Roche
Art by Jim Lavery
Finally getting into the backlog of Irish small press comic reading. First up is Knuckle Heroes.
Knuckle Heroes follows the adventures of a heroic mountain gorilla named Titus. Titus is smarter than the average gorilla due to a serum invented by Dr Terror, who was attempting to create an army of super soldiers.
From the opening panel, we’re straight into the action. Reader finds out after the initial excitement what was the context of the action. We learn about “The Old Man” and “Dr Terror”. The Old Man is the nemesis of Titus, as well as the ringleader to the rogue experiments created by Dr Terror.
The art has plenty of energy, which is great considering the amount of action in the story. I also enjoyed the wide variety of character design. The cast is primarily made up of the results of Dr Terror’s experiments. Lots of mutated animals, insects, reptiles that have opted to follow The Old Man. The bright colours also work great with the tone of the book.
The internal conflict of Titus was an interesting way to tackle the lead of a superhero book. Titus longs to return to his life prior to being mutated, but at the same time feels a responsibility to use his abilities to make the world a safer place before having the process reversed (with the aid of his partner, Tomka). In contrast, The Old Man wants tear down the whole world as revenge for the experiments done to him by Dr Terror.
Knuckle Heroes was a fun and action packed superhero story. I did enjoy the hyena attack scene and how it played out. The art and writing really played to how silly the scene was and just had fun with it.
I’m really enjoying the variety of stories that Two Pugs are releasing and will be keeping an eye out for the next book to add to the ever growing Two Pugs collection.
LINKS: Two Pugs Publishing website // Ray Roche on Twitter // Jim Lavery on Twitter