REVIEW: Sidekick For Hire 1 & 2

WRITER KRISTIAN HERRERA |ARTIST RICK ALVES | LETTERER TOBEN RACICOT 

Sidekick for hire is about a broke college kid named Leo. In order to pay his tuition, he found a job in one of the most lucrative industries in his city. Heroism. Well, Sidekickism. Leo posts work-for-hire ads on the internet where a surplus of heroes hires him for his well-paying “internship”. It might be work, but  Leo can’t help but enjoy himself while being a vigilante. The question is, can he handle this dangerous profession?  

STORY 

1 Star 

I was ready for this story as soon as I saw the cover for issue one. It made me laugh right away and I was hoping the story would keep that tone throughout the book. It exceeded my expectation when I finished issue two and felt there was more humor in that one. It would have never been able to do this if the protagonist of the story was not a sidekick. Most of the time when superhero stories are meant to be funny, they turn out really cheesy even if they succeed. I didn’t find this cheesy at all. The humor was sprinkled in nicely with dialogue and illustrations.  

The plot was solid as well. Herrera does a nice job of building the story out in the first two issues. I read issue one and then read issue two the next day. But that night after issue one… I was thinking about it. I  wanted to know where the story was going. Issue two ends in a similar fashion and I’m ready for issue three. 

ART 

1 Star 

I liked both covers. They both gave me a reason to smile. I will say that I was skeptical at first with issue two’s cover. I thought the hero looked silly. But as soon as I met that hero in the story, I was more than okay with it. Alves art complimented the storytelling well and there were subtleties in both issues that I  found hilarious.  

DIALOGUE 

.5 Stars

The dialogue told the story well, but Leo is the only character the reader gets to know. Leo has a couple of friends but so far, they only fill a place in the story. One is his best friend and classmate Jamie, and the only person Leo has talked about his crime-fighting with. It’s pretty casual talk. Considering people die, I  feel like there should have been a little more emotion in these conversations. Instead, it’s pretty surface-level dialogue and nothing to get me interested in characters like Jamie. It could be because the story is light-hearted and humorous. It could be because Leo isn’t paying attention to anyone else either, but I  do see more potential here. However, we meet Nightwolf in issue two and I’m confident we’ll get to know this hero. I’m excited about it, Nightwolf seems like a blast of a character. 

Two things that did bug me about the dialogue were about how Leo gets paid. Apparently, he only gets paid something like $500 a week. That’s just not enough nowadays. I wanted a grander number.  Secondly, Nightwolf said Leo would get paid via a check. Seems like if you were going to try and keep a  secret identity you wouldn’t want to do that unless in issue three we find out there’s a Nightwolf LLC. 

This could totally be possible by the way. Hero’s seemed common in the world, but we don’t know much about how society and the law treat them.  

EDITING 

.75 Stars

I found grammar errors in both issues. Nothing that took away from my enjoyment of the story, but I did  notice them. 

The lettering in the majority of the story is very well done and easy to read and follow along with. There were just a few panels that weren’t clear to me at first and they took me an extra second to understand. 

MECHANICS 

.75 Stars

All this being said the story was told well and I believe it accomplished its goal in the first two issues. As of now, there are plenty of areas for growth within a few characters, and the story that I am excited to see. Issue two leaves a cliff hanger that should help develop the city lives in as well. I’m confident this team has something fun planned for issue three and I am excited to see where it goes from here.