This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Cloaked.
Another series I had been eyeing up while at the shop, Cloaked always had the kind of covers that drew my eye – which in retrospect is quite impressive considering that the covers were all very dark and blue; whether it was their similarity to each other which served to give the series a sense of familiarity and permanence to me (the way our inventory system works, there was always an issue on the racks, and the design of the cover meant the books were recognizable).
I’m not going to regurgitate the blurb on the back of the trade for a summary in slightly different words, so instead I’ll just copy it directly from the publisher’s website:
From Mike Richardson, creator of The Mask, comes a superhero vision as dark as the night. Twenty-five years ago, a genuine masked crimefighter came out of nowhere to declare war on crime. All of America celebrated the exploits of the black-clad vigilante . . . and then he disappeared. But when down-on-his-luck investigator Jake Stevens is hired to find the long-missing avenger, his inquiries threaten to expose the myth behind the mask.
Cloaked, on the surface, reminded me of the heroes that inspired Batman; the Shadow, the Spider and the Black Bat. Men who were mostly powerless and used handguns to dish out justice to criminals to varying degrees of lethality. This story takes the form of a man trying to discover the legacy of the city’s masked hero by hiring an ex-cop private eye to find out why the hero disappeared. It’s through this lens that we get glimpses of the hero’s activities during the years he was active, told through the people who knew him the most (which, given that he kept his identity very close, isn’t many).
The story in the book is interesting; part commentary on Batman, and part noir detective story, this is a fantastic hardboiled detective story with a vigilante/super hero backdrop – though admittedly it’s not one I’ll read again anytime soon, it’s still very enjoyable.
At this point you can find it in trade, so it’s worth at least looking out for it.
Join us next week where there will doubtless be another movie, series, comic or comic related thing discussed that is, for whatever reason, Underrated.
Source: Graphic Policy
