Polite Dissent

(As comicdom’s top NASCAR fan — or NASCAR’s top comics fan — I felt it was my duty to review the recent comic NASCAR Heroes #1, the first in a new ongoing series published by Starbridge Media)

This is not the worst comic I’ve ever read — it’s not even in the bottom ten — but make no mistake: this is a bad comic. To be more succinct, this is the Herbie Fully Loaded of comics. Actually, that’s not fair to Herbie because it was more authentically NASCAR as it at least featured cameos by actual NASCAR drivers.

Dashiell James is a lowly janitor working for Diesel Industries, the top racing team in NASCAR, which just happens to field the top driver: the arrogant and rude Jack Diesel. Dash’s best friends are the pit crew for Team Flatstock, the worst team in NASCAR. They’re so bad that they’ve never even managed to qualify a single race car, let alone win a race. Instead of actual personalities, each member of the pit crew has a personality quirk, such as Ed who always says everything twice. Says everything twice. The lone female character is Astor, the owner of Team Everlast. She doesn’t seem to need a personality quirk because she has breasts.

Late at night, Jack Diesel is conducting some secret experiments in his trailer, and when he is interrupted there is a mysterious explosion. He, as well as Dash and Team Flatstock are all doused in some mysterious radiation. Being a comic book, this radiation doesn’t give everyone cancer, but instead endows everyone with super powers — powers the Flatstockteam uses to finally field a winning race car. Dash becomes the team’s mysterious masked driver and he and a similarly super powered Jack Diesel compete the tooth and nail to win the race. I’ll let you guess how the race end.

The story is so far removed from anything resembling the reality of NASCAR that I doubt any casual race fan who picked up the book will consider coming back for the second issue. I’m not talking about the super powers aspect, I’m talking about the blatant disregard for the rules and realities of the sport the comic is supposed to be about. Speaking of super powers, the super-hero aspects read like some of the worst excesses of the Silver Age, but with none of their charm. In short, this comic manages to combine NASCAR and comic books in such a way that it alienates fans of both.

On the plus side, the paper quality is nice and there aren’t many ads.

Previous NASCAR posts:
Comic Books and NASCAR: the Real Story
NASCAR Super-Pro (my tongue in cheek attempt at a NASCAR comic of my own. It may not be any better, but it’s a lot cheaper!)