'Gregory Graves Vol 1' felt like an abridged graphic novel, if anything. The characters/tropes were painfully familiar and perhaps overdone, and things wrapped up a little too quickly/neatly.

'Gregory Graves Vol. 1: Kill Your Idols' by Dan Harmon and Eric Esquivel with art by Brent Schoonover, Ted Naifeh, Paul Mounts and Rebecca Nalty tells a variation of a familiar story to comic book fans.

Supervillain Gregory Graves is in deep lockup along with other supervillains. A famous reporter is granted an interview. During the interview, we learn the origins of Gregory as well as the strange hero from another planet, Luminary. Gregory Graves knows some things about Luminary, like his secret identity, and how he might actually be a threat. Could the man the world fears the most, be it's greatest hero?

It's a variant of the Superman/Lex Luthor matchup with Lex possibly being the one who is right. It tries to be funny at times, and that feels like it falls flat. The art was mediocre and didn't impress me. I do like what they tried to do with this though.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Starburns Industries Press, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Dan Harmon of Community and Rick & Morty co-created this but I found little of his humor or sarcasm within. A variation of the Superman / Lex Luthor story where Lex Luthor was ultimately right. Now it appears in future volumes we'll get to see Luthor run with his vision for the world unchecked.

This is a pretty biting and on the nose satire about the current state of world politics and I really enjoyed it! It tells the story of Gregory Graves, the world's most dangerous super villain and the realities of what that entails, in terms of origin story and motivations. It shines a light on the hypocrisy prevalent in most politicians and do-gooders and is generally witty and well plotted, if a little heavy handed on occasion. For anyone who says they're sick of superhero movies and tropes, this would be right up their alley.
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like I missed a lot of back story on this so I'm putting a disclaimer out there. This is the only graphic novel I've read with these characters. If there were previous ones I have no knowledge of them. That being said, I felt like I was missing something. There was a lot going on and not sufficient explanation. Since this is going to be a multiple volume story, then less could have been put into this volume with more details for the events. What it felt like was I was reading a synopsis of a full length book instead of an actual story. The characters have some depth to them and have the potential to be really fleshed out but it was too rushed. The story concept was good but again was too rushed to be fully entertaining.

3 stars.

This is a two-starrer all round – stupid value for money, calling a double-sized issue a Volume 1, not engaging us with art, and giving us a story the likes of which we'd have read, if not written, ourselves multiple times. It's bloody obvious that [redacted] is [redacted], and when the narrative finally settles on one story, do we feel enlightened or entertained by it? Not really, no.

This was a mildly enjoyable story, but seemed to shift tonally at times, going from dark to humorous at times without warning, and the artwork would do so as well, which could be grating.

It is an interesting premise, but could have benefited with deeper exploration, spread over 3 or so issues rather than this rather short tale.

Dan Harmon co-created this, but it lacks either the crazy warmth of Community or the nihilistic bite of Rick & Morty. It's yet another riff on the Superman/Lex Luthor relationship, but the twists it thinks it's bringing have all been seen before, chiefly in Invincible. Disappointing.

(Netgalley ARC)

Gregory Graves Vol. 1 opens with supervillian/evil genius Gregory Graves on death row. In a twisted Superman type story, Graves is being interviewed by a news paper reporter who also happens to be the secret cover of superhero Luminary. Graves is a twisted Lex Luthor that lets his loathing of Luminary taint all his genius. In a unique twist, Luminary reveals that Graves may not be totally wrong in his mistrust as they have to team up to the save the world from the alien race that Luminary is a part of. The story is okay. The art has great moments of clarity before getting scratchy again but the colors play out nicely. This comic is unique in its perspective but needs more dialogue and more time spent on the writing to be really great. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.