Sundowners TPB Vol 1

Faster than lightning! Stronger than steel! Crazier than an outhouse rat? Enter the Sundowners—sworn to protect humanity from interdimensional invaders! But is the threat real, or all in their heads?

If you hadn’t guessed already, this is a very dark series, that blurs the lines between vigilantism and outright delusion.  The story commences with a washed up psychologist, who has taken up “counseling” a group of people called Sundowners, people who don costumes and patrol the night looking for everything from Reptiloids to purse snatchers.  It is clear from the first issue, that even if they are right, they are still a little crazy, maybe a lot.  My personal favorite was Arcanika who gains physical strength for committing biblical sins.  Concerned Citizen isn’t as much fun, but has a touching ongoing story.  He’s clearly in the grips of at least 2 different clinical issues, but still finds a way to channel that into something positive to support and defend the people in his neighborhood.

The story and art in this series are dark and dreary.  One exception to this, is that the painted covers are entrancing.  Tim Seely focuses deeply on the depths of personal despair of his characters.  The magic of the series, is that even in the midst of their insanity, they are trying to save the world, or at least their little corner of it.  As the story progresses it seems that there really is some form of interdimensional threat that is perched to open up a can of whoop ass on the city of Chicago.  The problem, and perhaps beauty of the series, is that it’s never quite clear even at the end, if it’s real or not.  Even when the “heroes” are in the final fight with the aliens, two bystanders only see them battling empty air.  So, is it real?  Is it delusion, is it Memorex?  Even after my second reading, I still wasn’t sure myself.  This is very artistic, but a little difficult to follow.  Lovers of stories like Watchmen, will adore this, but more conventional fans, will likely find offense with the treatment of the superhero concept.

For more about The Sundowners, or other works from Dark Horse, please visit Dark Horse.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.