Bulletproof Comics #3
J.E. Smith
Reviewed by Darren Hick

It all started with characters like Don Simpson's Megaton Man, Ben Edlund's The Tick and Rick Veitch's Bratpack: superheroes as commentaries on the nature of superheroicity; comic books reflecting on the nature of comics. Eventually, Simpson took his Bizarre Heroes to the Internet, where they became less a commentary on other comics and more an ongoing self-parody; Edlund's Tick went the way of FOX, losing his edge, but gaining more widespread fame; and Veitch's collection of sidekicks have walked that road to the quarter bins of comic stores everywhere, lost among the hordes of other once-knowns.

Smith's Bulletproof Comics represents another homespun attempt to fill out this genre-about-a-genre. Each of the afore-mentioned comics relied upon a certain familiarity on the part of the reader with the superhero tradition in general, and various highlights in particular. Edlund's original Tick was filled with references to Frank Miller's Daredevil work (though you won't find any of these in-jokes in the animated television series), and Bratpack was comprised of more such referential material than I care to catalogue here. Smith's influences, likewise, are worn on his sleeve. For the reader-in-the-know, Bulletproof Comics contains a variety of obscure and not-so-obscure pointers to Bloom County, Star Wars, Peanuts and CBG, and to the styles of such creators as Gil Kane, Steve Bissette and Scott McCloud. There are many I haven't listed, and I've undoubtedly missed many more. I didn't see any Journal references, but I'm not bitter.

Despite all this intertextuality, Bulletproof Comics is not strictly a parody nor a satire. Its central focus remains its own story: the adventures of Bulletproof (a token superhero), Dr. Oliver W. Jones (a token scientist), and their experiments with the time-stream. Quickly, the reader is plunged into a classic DC-style story so filled with convoluted continuity conundrums, wide-eyed hokeyness and truly evil masterminds as to satisfy any comic reader still holding a little love and a whole lot of embarrassment about the whole Spandex genre. Like The Tick and Megaton Man, Smith's book can be read and comprehended even if the reader isn't strongly versed in the little obscurities of the superhero pantheon, but unlike those comics, would then lose the only true amusement value that Smith has sewn into its fabric. In-jokes aside, it's a pretty weak story: transparent and telegraphed. The characters are one-dimensional (which serves the story in the sense that Bulletproof, himself, is merely an image to carry 60 years worth of muscle-bound stereotypes, but fails in the sense that being all characters, Bulletproof is no character, himself, at all) and the plot is hackneyed (of course, so were most of the silver-age DC plots upon which Smith is basing the story, so on the insider's level, at least, it can be said to work in service to his vision). It all depends on what angle you're coming from.

Smith's art is, on the whole, competent, but lacks the fanboy zeal that gives his story its amusing quality. Sort of like what Batton Lash might have drawn had he chosen this genre. He's clearly still at an experimental stage in his approach to storytelling, and is getting the little shortcuts and tricks to comics out of the way in one fell swoop. With some luck and some practice, Smith will continue to work at, and improve in, comics. Maybe he'll be the next Roy Thomas. He seems to have the trivial knowledge; hopefully he'll develop the storytelling skill.

$2.25'll score you a copy of Bulletproof Comics #3. You can get a copy by contacting J.E. Smith at 4909 Courtside Dr. #131, Irving, TX, 75038. Take a look at his website at http://www.raraavis.com/bulletproof/.