The Quarter Bin

Top Cow’s annual Pilot Season kicks off again this week with Murderer #1. Here are our thoughts.

Pilot Season: Murderer #1
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Nelson Blake II
Cover Artist: Marc Silvestri

Pilot Season 2008 was my first foray into Top Cow’s fan-voting comic series tradition, and I really liked it a lot. Some of the entries were better than others, obviously, but there was some really great potential in there. When Top Cow announced that this year’s Pilot Season would feature five pilot issues created by the same people, I wasn’t sure that it would be the same, even though those creators were industry vets Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri. Now that I’ve read Murderer #1, the first Pilot Season 2009 entry, I’m rethinking my original stance.

The story is interesting, that’s for sure. Our protagonist, Jason, has a super power, but he’s no hero. He hears the thoughts of others. The most personal, or trivial, inner monologues of nearby people penetrate his brain, completely unwelcome, completely distracting. The only way to quiet the voices is to kill people, and even then, he only gets a few hours of peace. Jason will, apparently, take what he can get–but he’s no sociopath. He’s not a good guy, either, don’t get me wrong. He’s a killer, the titular murderer, trying to justify it by killing people even worse than he is.

We find out in the first couple of pages that Jason, probably in his 20s, lives with his grandmother and his parents are dead. You can infer from that what you will, and I’ve got a few theories of my own, but I’m not going to share them just yet, in case they turn out to be spoilers. It’s easy to see how one could be completely overwhelmed by this ability. The issue left me with plenty of questions that I would like to see answered, which means Murderer definitely has room to grow–I could see this becoming a solid mini or regular series for Top Cow, should it win the vote. It certainly helps that Nelson Blake II’s artwork is also very strong. The characters are crisp and clean; it’s not over-rendered, and the details are nice. Of course, being the first Pilot Season issue to come out this year, we don’t yet know what the competition will be.

Once again, Pilot Season is off to a good start. If you’re following Pilot Season, pick up Murderer #1 in comic shops tomorrow.