Incredibles 2: Crisis in Mid-Life & Other Stories #1 Review!

There was an Incredibles title released during the first movie by Boom Studios.  There is a Disney Comics with Dark Horse Comics release Incredibles 2: Heroes at Home in hardback now.  The cover is by Gurihuru which has Mr. Incredible taking on a robot while Violet is protecting civilians with her force field and Dash is racing by.  The first film came out in 2004 with the second Incredibles opened on June 15th.  The first story is “Crisis in Mid-Life!” by Christos Gage who has written for Marvel, but also Buffy the Vampire Season Ten for Dark Horse.  Gurihuru provides the interior artwork, talented Japanese artists, they have worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender comics for Dark Horse.  It opens with a black and white flashback set in Mr. Incredible’s superhero past.  He is at the Municiberg (a new location!) Naval Base inaugurating the Swordfish-class submarine.  

The scaffolding holding up the submarine breaks (sabotage?) and the crowd scatters as the submarine is about to fall.  Mr. Incredible smiles as the shadow of the submarine falls on him.  He of course heroically holds up the submarine and slowly brings it down. It jumps to the current time with the perky reporter, Brenda, interviewing Mr. Incredible about that day when she was in kindergarten!  The visual flow of images by Gurihuru is brilliant.  He is inaugurating a new submarine, the Sunfish-class, but he says it’s all about the crew.  This time the event is disrupted by the super villain, Bomb Voyage!, he appeared in the first film.  Mr. Incredible swats away the bombs to explode in the bay, but Brenda notes that one heads toward the scaffolding.   The submarine’s shadow falls on the crowd and once again Mr. Incredible, in a close-up, holds up the submarine.  It’s weight crushes Mr. Incredible and a medium shot we see it fall on him!  He is freed later by Frozone.  

A naval officer notes that the new submarine is lighter than the previous version.  This leads to the headline that Mr. Incredible is losing his powers.  Another plot connected to the submarine sabotage?  At their home, Bob worries about his weakened power while Elasti-Girl uses her powers to get her children ready, clever.  She tells him to visit Rick Dicker.  At the National Supers Agency, the agent and confidante shows a pic of his son, Rick Junior, and that his son is his legacy.  This very poignant for a comic book or cartoon.  He returns home to see Dash making a mess of Violet’s room at super speed after she cleaned it up.  Their father tells him that he should have messed up the room like Violet so he wouldn’t be blamed.  Then, he tells Violet that even if she is invisible, she can leave footprints like her shoes on a fallen shirt.  Bob calls a family meeting and agrees to train Violet and Dash.  Helen is hesitant, but reluctantly agrees to the training.  To be continued in part 2!  

The next story, “Bedtime Story”, features art by J Bone.  Jack Jack is bouncing on a bed in his red, shape-shifted form and Bob agrees to tell him a story if he settles down in his normal form.  Bob relates a time when the Supers were meeting at “The Summer Crossover”, when they crossed over the Metroville Bridge, clever!  I like the seminar, Secret Hideout Feng Shui, but the event is broken up by Baron Von Ruthless!  He is a caped villain with a monocle operating a giant robot.  Von Ruthless blasts all of the Supers with a “Power-Draining Ray”, a technology all of the villains (and some heroes) could use, but Mr. Incredible leaps out, unaffected!  He smashes the giant robot, every part shatters from one blow!, and Dash and Violet enter disbelieving the story.  Bob promises all of this children that he will tell them the full story in Part 2!   

The last story, “A Relaxing Day at the Park”, is by Landry Q. Walker with art by Emilio Urbano and Andrea Greppi.  Landry has worked on many young reader comics and Andrea has worked on many Disney titles, Duck Tales and Disney Fairies.  At the park, Bob brings Jack Jack to the sand pit while he relaxes on a bench, tired from staying up all night with Dash’s homework from the second film.  Jack Jack sees a little boy looking at a statue of a turtle holding balloons. He imagines that the turtle is a super villain and teleports to an elephant play area with a slide in the center of it’s head and trunk, he slides off it, past the wheel go round, and flies over to the turtle.  He lamps it to give the boy the balloons.  Heroic, but kinda destructive.  This comic is packed with fun stories and a peek at more of the Incredibles world!  

Five Masks out of Five! 

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