At first blush, Edison Rex reminds me a bit of a Saturday morning cartoon version of Mark Waid’s Irredeemable or perhaps Incorruptible, the sister book in which the world’s greatest villain tries to be a hero after its paragon starts murdering everyone. The two blonde Superman stand-ins even look the same. Seriously, like the same costume, same everything. It’s weird.
MINOR SPOILERS BELOW
This anthology of awesomeness, however, (SPOILERS) has The World’s Most Brilliant Man talking to the God Who Walks Among Us into a Futurama-style murder booth before things get bloody. Then, he has to fill his shoes. It’s great.
The story gets really goofy from there. While there’s enough pathos to keep the reader invested, it’s mostly a supervillain satire. The art is excellent and the action smooth, and I laughed out loud more than once reading through this first volume.
What impressed me most about Edison Rex was its fully realized world and deft manipulation of the tropes of the superhero genre. We get a nice waltz through the rogues’ gallery, as Edison takes out his former allies. It’s well worth reading the addendums at the end of the issues in which Rex details the histories of the people he encounters. It helps with the aforementioned world building process, and they’re pretty funny. That balance of self-awareness and commitment reminds me a bit of The Venture Brothers cartoon. High praise from this humble reviewer.
I would recommend this collection. It’s well worth the price of admission.
