Garbage Man GN Review - Swamp Thing Meets The Toxic Avenger
Writer/Artist: Aaron Lopresti | Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
A couple of years I saw Aaron Lopresti’s crowd funder for Garbage Man on Indiegogo and backed it. Unfortunately, the campaign was not funded. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the solicit for the Graphic Novel on the Comicshub App and added it to my cart immediately.
At the outset of this review, I will acknowledge the drama I have seen Aaron pulled into online. In all my interactions with him he has always been polite, insightful. Regardless of perceived political leanings or Comicsgate status, he is a legit talent and deserves grace. Although I may not agree with him on every issue on the table, times are hard, and I will not knock a creator for putting food on the table.
In the classic sense, Garbage Man is an honest to goodness solid superhero origin story. In the 70’s or 80’s this story would have been condensed to a single issue. However, the book works, and Aaron layer’s enough intrigue and concepts that I remained hooked as the story progressed.
The story is not deep or complicated. High-powered attorney Richard Morse gets too close to the criminal activity of his client and is silenced. Morse is captured and subjected to heinous experiments and left for dead. He is later reborn in the body of a monster, sound familiar?
As the story progresses, we learn of Garbage Man’s past and new abilities. He also deals with new threats and meets unlikely allies. By the end of the story Garbage Man is setup with a new status quo and blank slate for the creative team to tell stories going forward.
What I liked most about Garbage Man is that the story felt familiar yet new. Many modern creators spend so much time trying to subvert the expectations of the superhero genre that they forget what made the industry work in the first place.
The Character designs of Garbage Man are great. The action sequences within the graphic novel are dynamic and mesh well with Aaron Lopresti’s art style. There isn’t much to gripe about in Garbage Man. The Graphic Novel is soul food if you are a fan of the medium.
In Short: Garbage Man is a back-to-basics Super-Hero origin story. If you can’t get into this story, you don’t like comics.