Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dynamite, entertainment, peter milligan, Piotr Kowalski, Terminal Hero

Review Of Peter Milligan's Terminal Hero #1

Published Thu, 10 Jul 2014 07:00:53 -0500

I got a chance to read Terminal Hero #1 by Peter Milligan and Piotr Kowalski and came away with some thoughts about the book. After having interviewed Milligan a few weeks back I had a different idea of what the series was going to be. He spoke about how it was a more personal story so I was expecting something small and personal. It does start small.

The story is about a young doctor named Rory who is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He is given about two months to live and chemo would only add a few weeks at best. So he's having a really bad day. His best friend discovers Treatment Q, a procedure that had great initial results in dealing with this exact type of tumor. Except the doctor running the treatment used it on himself, he went insane and committed suicide. Then the government turned the treatment top secret. His friend is certain he can improve upon the initial results and gives Rory the treatment.

What happens next is for you to read. But the treatment unleashes a different side of Rory. An almost insatiable side. It also taps into portions of the brain that are unused and unleashes certain abilities that don't mix well with this darker version of Rory. The closest thing I could relate it to would be the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I said earlier that I expected this to be small and what I mean is that I thought it was going to be more about a characters personal plight through the realization of their own mortality and then the experiment that changes it all and that is exactly what Milligan gives us through the majority of the book. We see how Rory copes with the news and then how his friends react. Then, after the treatment we see the change that comes over Rory and the fallout of his action with his friends. Again, that is kept very small until the end. And then you get the sense that this very small story is a Mentos and it was just dropped into a 2 liter of Diet Coke.

Piotr Kowalki's art fits the story very well. His work is very detailed yet feels very open and loose. Not something I would normally have gravitated to, but I really enjoyed it here. And the color choices by Kelly Fitzpatrick are perfect for the tone of the issue. Nothing about this book feels like a superhero story… but then again, that's what makes it good.

The book goes on sale August 6^th, and it's a Mature Reader book so you can expect the numbers to be a little lower. If this sounds like something you'd want to read, I'd say let your retailer know now before the final order cutoff. The book is $2.99, is full returnable and Dynamite is saying they will not be overprinting it because of that. So if you want a copy, you want to make that happen now.

So why do the no overprinting/fully returnable move? I asked Nick Barrucci, president of Dynamite and he said: "We wanted to bring these books to fans at the lowest MSRP possible – which is $2.99, and also wanted to give retailers the confidence to order by making them fully returnable. There just isn't any margin for error by overprinting as there's very little margin period, but we are putting our best foot forward to get these to the fans and allow retailers to minimize the risk. Also, beyond the #1's since some fans have asked, and I want to be clear, these series are planned to continue at the $2.99 MSRP."

For more on the series, click here.

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