Joe Hill's The Cape

Joe Hill's The Cape

Author: Jason Ciaramella
Artist: Zach Howard
Colourist: Nelson Daniel
Letterer: Shawn Lee
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Writing a review on a book whilst remaining spoiler free isn't easy, even when the book was published in collected form in May of 2012 and virtually everyone you know has read it before.
I'm struggling to come up with words for how good The Cape is, with using overly gushing praise or simply writing a list of adjectives such as awesome, brilliant, stunning...

Suffice to say, The Cape turns the classic 'capes and cowls' superhero genre on its head, subverting the expected in a series on events that repeatedly led to my hand covering my mouth, a shocked expression on my face and more than one muttered expletive.

Howard's art and Daniel's colours mix the youthful exuberance of a young Eric with the broken man he grows in to with a startling grace. Even in the twisted interior of Eric's head there is a dark beauty to be found, if you are willing to look for it.

Saying any more would give too much away, but I can't encourage anyone to read this enough. As the lovely H_Paz on Twitter put it: just say "it was like, woah. But then it got more crazy and I was like, DAYUM. This shit is nuts, read it". I couldn't have put it better myself.