Polite Dissent

The official start of the 2008 NASCAR season, the Daytona 500, is this weekend, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at issue #2 of the NASCAR Heroes comic book.

I believe this second issue of NASCAR Heroes is actually slightly better than the first one, but that’s not really saying much. The story picks up right where the first issue left off. Dashiell James, a lowly janitor, and his friends of Team Flatrock were caught in a mysterious explosion caused by the evil rocket scientist and top NASCAR racer Jack Diesel (yes you read that right, not only is Diesel NASCAR’s #1 driver, but he’s also a rocket scientist). The mysterious radiation from this explosion gave everyone involved super-powers. Dashiell uses his powers to become the mysterious masked racer “Jimmy Dash” and he and Team Flatrock have become Diesel’s biggest competition.

Most of the book is taken up by various races between Diesel and Dash which all follow the same pattern: Diesel uses his super-powers in an underhanded way to attack Dash and his car, yet Dash somehow manages to beat him in the end. For instance, Diesel — while driving at competition speeds — leans his entire upper body out of his car window and physically tears a chunk of Dash’s car away and rips through an oil line, or maybe it’s a brake line. Regardless, Dash is able to bring his car down pit lane and stop it with feet through the floor board, a la Fred Flintstone. His team manages to fix his car with some bodywork and a new belt for the water pump (how that fixes brakes or an oil line, I don’t know). Dash and his car race back to front but this time Diesel shoots a laser beam from his eyes at them. Luckily, Dash is ready and raises a mirror he has prepared for such an occasion and reflects the laser back at Diesel (yes, his reflexes are apparently faster than light). Using this distraction, he is able to win the race.

I’m beginning to think that the poor logic in the book’s storytelling may actually cause brain damage. As far as you can tell by the story, there are only two cars at each race. Never mind the other 41 cars, drivers, teams, track personnel, NASCAR officials, reporters or sponsor representatives that should be there. Somehow the NASCAR officials never seem to notice such minor things as laser beams, spurting oil, or drivers leaning out the window and never ever call a caution. The most spectacular display of illogic occurs toward the end of the comic when Diesel holds Team Flatrock’s owner Astor hostage at a local auto salvage yard; he tells Jimmy Dash to meet him there alone. To his credit, Jimmy comes with the other members of the team. On the other hand, they all come in the team’s single race car: a not-road-legal race car that can barely manage to hold one person yet somehow manages to carry the entire team. Plus, you know, it’s an auto salvage yard — bringing a race car there is just asking for trouble.

The art tries, but is mostly amateurish (one problem may be the fact that the credits list one main artist plus four additional “guest artists”). It’s not bad, but it needs to be a lot better in what is supposed to be a professional comic. The layout and blocking are good and show an understanding of the comics medium, but the colors need a lot of work and always come off looking flat.

On the plus side, there are imaginative use of sound effects. In this issue, we get a Bzannnnng, a bunch of Krimps, several Ftashes, a Zavf, plus the ever reliable Wump, Klang, and Klunk. The paper quality is nice, too.

The main problem with this comic is the same thing that I mentioned after reading the first issue: it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a NASCAR comic for comic fans, or a comic book for NASCAR fans? It tries to be both, and succeeds at neither. The story is too over the top and too cliché to appeal to modern comic readers (and it’s probably even too much for Silver Age readers — and that says a lot). On the flip side, the racing scenes and background are too far removed from the reality of the sport to appeal to the NASCAR fan.

Previous NASCAR posts:
Review of NASCAR Heroes #1
Comic Books and NASCAR: the Real Story