Profiting Off Of The Resistance With Heart Attack #1
by Josh Davison
Mild Spoilers Ahead
We join a pair of graffiti artists defacing a poster for the VCU, or Variant Control Unit, a law enforcement organization in charge of capturing and hunting Variants. Variants are super-powered individuals, and both of the artists are Variants. The VCU spot them doing this, and one is taken, and the other gets a way. The captured variant is Nona Shaker, a member of the Freebodies, a news and resistance organization dedicated to fighting the VCU. From there, we meet Jill, a Variant and news anchor for the Freebodies, and Sefton Smith, CEO and founder of Freebodies. Jill and her team feel misused by Sefton, not helped by Sefton bumping their show for the news report about Nona. That night, the Freebodies host a party, and Charlie, the graffiti artist who got away, meets up with Sefton, and he runs into Jill. Something strange happens when Jill and Charlie make physical contact.
Heart Attack #1 presents us with a dystopian future where superpowers are common but subtle, and law enforcement is given free reign to abuse and incarcerate those powered individuals. However, the Freebodies use information and counter-propaganda to fight against that abuse of law enforcement power, aka the VCU.
The first issue does a good job of establishing this world and the main characters in it while giving us a peak at their personalities. Jill is the lynchpin, and her personality stands out the most out of everyone.
Of course, dystopia is dime-a-dozen in comics, but Heart Attack #1 also poses an interesting critique of “resistance media.” Sefton Smith and Freebodies is naked in its interest in selling merch and throwing profile-boosting parties. Meanwhile, Smith also urges Freebodies viewers to not fight back against the VCU directly. In other words, Freebodies gives the anti-VCU message people want to hear, but they also profit off of viewers and deliberately keep the nonviolent and docile. As a result, Freebodies and Smith read like controlled opposition for the VCU or, at the very least, useful idiots. It’s a pretty damn interesting way of presenting a story.
Eric Zawadzki’s artwork is appealing and dripping with personality. He gives life and atmosphere to this world of stormtrooper policing and raucous resistance parties. The aesthetic is gaudy and grabbing, and the color art of Michael Garland pops off the page with vibrant and contrasting palette choices.
Heart Attack #1 provides a compelling opener for the new comic series. We are presented with a world of over-policing, ineffective counteraction, and people who genuinely want to change things for the better in spite of it all. It has engaging characters and a solid visual design. As such, I can easily give this one a recommendation. Feel free to give it a read.
Heart Attack #1 comes to us from writer Shawn Kittelsen, artist and cover artist Eric Zawadzki, color artist Michael Garland, and letterer Pat Brosseau.
Final Score: 8.5/10
