Twenty-four-year-old Clara is a normal irresponsible young woman, except for one detail – her father, a brilliant chemist, has perfected a formula – actually, four different formulas – that can create super-humans. After her father gives two of the formulas to her and her friend Maggie, the two become superheroes and celebrities. While Maggie is dedicated to crime-fighting, Clara is distracted by more selfish pursuits. But when a girl she used to pick on takes the most powerful of the four formulas, Clara may come to regret her selfish and lazy ways. Alone against an enemy more powerful than she is, can she survive?
This is the plot of Adventures of Clarity Girl # 1, a re-imagining of the indie super-hero character by her creator, Chris Thomasma, who writes and draws the characters in the book published by Sarcastic Skull Studios. The backgrounds are drawn by Michael Allen Pearce, the cover is by Tam, with a variant by Apen, and Chuck Pineau edits. The comic seeks to return super-heroes to more light-hearted storytelling, at which it succeeds wildly. The art style, which is cartoony, reinforces this atmosphere. Clara is very much in the mold of a young Peter Parker, Miles Morales, or Kamala Khan. Young, optimistic, naive, and a little bit self-centered, Clara has hopefully taken her first step to be a hero, but she has a long way to go. The story, which serves as Clara’s origin, is tightly and clearly written, and we get a good sense of the personalities of these characters. The art is excellent for the subject matter but sometimes the panel backgrounds and characters seemed oddly discordant with each other, which would be my biggest gripe.
In other words, if you want your heroes young and optimistic again, and you want to see them stumble on their heroes’ journey, Clarity Girl is for you. The comic will be available on May 1st at http://sarcasticskull.storenvy.com/