Superhero Saga #2 is a comic written by Julie C. Gilbert with art by Tim Sparvero. Jessica continues to perform superpower tests for Bridgeway Labs. This is a science fiction superheroine comic that gets very technical with a lot of experiments and a little bit of drama. The leading lady here is Jessica Turpie, she has multiple superpowers and has had a job testing superpowers for quite some time. Her family consists of her mother and father along with two brothers. She also has a best friend named Ellie who works at the same company in a much less important role. This story begins with Jessica doing an in-depth test on invisibility superpowers. Her next task is to test telepathy powers and when she’s done with that she attempts to rest and relax but she’s interrupted by her mom. This takes place in a world where most people have at least one superpower. There isn’t any violence against people here. This moves at a slower-than-average pace as the testing can get very involved. This has the tone of the early part of a superhero movie when the main character first gets powers and tries to see the extent of their abilities. There really aren’t any violent or dramatically intense moments here. The dialogue here can be very descriptive and verbose when Jessica is performing her experiments and it is usually expressed via narration. There are at least a few word-heavy pages. This is an interesting sequel issue that gives a closer look at the day-to-day life of a superpower tester.

            The art here is a drawn in a cartoonishly detailed style with decent lighting and shading. The color palette is pretty large with most of the different tones being in a gradient form; cyan, magenta, and yellow seem to be the building blocks here. Besides some grass on the lawn outside of a house there isn’t really any natural scenery here. The main location is Bridgeway Labs but Jessica does a lot of travel around the city and visits various businesses. Backgrounds here tend to be solid or gradient colors with surroundings being shown occasionally. The expression level here is around average as Jessica can be a bit deadpan with slight or no reaction. Emotions shown here include shock, anger, annoyance, irritation, and rare happiness. Faces have an average cartoonish level of detail and they can get animated which leads to most expressions being clear. The use of some superpowers results in a bubbly/amoeba-like yellowish glow. Though various weapons and explosives are used it isn’t against living creatures. . The lone action scene is a couple of pages long and it focuses on small snapshots of different moments.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like science fiction superheroine stories that star a woman who tests superpowers and features a bit of drama then this is for you.

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

PG. Violence.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Fate and mothers have a lousy sense of timing.”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/juliecgilbert/superhero-saga-issue-2-of-5/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 20

Violent Pages: 2, for 10% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

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

 

Violence Level – 1

“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 – 1

“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 – 1

“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 – 1

“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.”