Banjax #1 is a comic written by Rylend Grant with art by Fabio Alves and colors by Edson Ferreira. A former superhero reflects on his life after receiving a startling diagnosis. This is a gritty superhero comic with heavy drama, strong violence, and noir vibes. The main man for this comic is Banjax, real name Laird Mason. He had a rough childhood and used his powers to deal justice as a vigilante. He has super-strength and accelerated healing abilities among other things. This story begins with him as a child and we see all the violence and tragedy he watched and went through growing up. We then see his powers develop and we watch him as he tries to figure out what to do with them. When walking by an alley he sees a woman in distress and he decides to intervene. The violence in this story is very brutal with a lot of blood and gruesome attacks that lead to gore. The pacing here is steady and the tone is grim and dark with an overall gritty feel. This is very intense almost the entire time for dramatic and violent reasons. The dialogue here is primarily narration from Banjax as he recounts his life though there are some conversational moments scattered throughout. There are at least a couple word-heavy pages here. This is a debut issue that dives head first into the dark, gritty, and depraved with a lead that violently thrives in this world.

            The art here is smoothly detailed and drawn in a modern style with heavy shading. Most of the colors here are on the darker side with a lot of black, blue, and red/orange; sometimes it is in black-and-white with one or two normal colors. There isn’t any natural scenery as this takes in a seemingly dense city with skyscrapers and the like. The location moves around a lot on almost a page-by-page basis with it going from homes and hospitals to alleys and other shady places. The backgrounds usually show the immediate and distant surroundings with helps each scene be just a little bit or a lot heavier. The expression level here is average as the Banjax wears a mask but even when he isn’t he has a hard, tough look. Emotions we’ll see often are anger and rage with some sadness, shock, and horror. The faces have an overall good amount of detail and the expressions usually come across clearly. The violence is mainly delivered physically though sometimes bats and clubs are used. There is a lot of blood and a bit of light gore here with many brutal and a few gruesome attacks. The action scenes are scattered and frequent and they tend to flow well.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like dramatic superhero stories starring a troubled hero and featuring strong violence and noir vibes then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood, gore, gruesomeness, drug use, sexual situations, subject matter(sexual assault).

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“No one should be able to hit like that.”

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 30

Violent Pages: 16, for 53% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 1, for 3% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 4

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 4

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 2

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 2

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”