I had a writer once tell me that the hardest part is knowing when to start a story. Interesting ideas can often be too bogged down by the setup. Based on its cover and concept, Backwards Man seems like it could be an interesting story. The problem comes when writers bury the lead and don't give the reader what they want in the first issue. Although it has great art and the potential to be a fun tale, the first issue feels more like prologue than the meat of the story.
The story takes place in a world where a corporation named Hemocorp Laboratories wants people to give blood, promising a solution to all of their medical problems. But in typical comic book fashion, the company has nefarious plans. A down on his luck worker on Wall Street and a prison convict get roped in to their strange experiments. And the issue leaves off as the experiment is about to begin, where it looks as if the two characters are about to become fused back to back.
Being a story called Backwards Man and having a cover with a man literally infused to another man's back feels like comic book mayhem. I was hoping to get that from the first issue, but it was all set up, building to the moment when they actually become combined. Comic books is a fickle medium. So many people pick up the first issue, only to never continue the series. Backwards Man has a lot to offer from the premise, but if I were picking this up off the shelves, I might not give it another chance simply because the first issue didn't deliver. It also could have used a fair dose of editing to the dialogue. On the plus side, the art was great, so perhaps readers who pick it up in trade format might be less put off by the slow start.
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