Pilot Season Twilight Guardian

I gotta say I’m pretty disappointed with this one. And it really comes down to this one… nitpicky point… “Nothing happened.” Nothing happened at all! “Here I am walking around my neighborhood. Now I’m at home. Now I’m walking around again. Look a car. Now it’s over.”

Very disappointed with it. Tyler said it all, nothing happened. Even as a setup issue, it was so bland. The only character we got to meet is the main lady, no action whatsoever. I know it could get developped a bit more as an ongoing but as part of the Pilot Season contest, we had to see a bit more to give us a reason to pick up a second issue of it.

Here’s the thing, it wasn’t bad writing. It actually interested me a lot. It reminded me of a female, mild version of Kick-Ass and I liked this version of it. The one problem was that nothing really happened. If it wins the Pilot Season, then I would be very interested in seeing where this series is going. The only requirement for this is that it actually has to go somewhere.

What do you get when you REALLY take an accurate look at the life of someone who decides to be a neighborhood superhero? Absolutely NOTHING, I guess, which equates to an absolute snorefest. “Pilot Season: Twilight Guardian” and Troy Hickman take a BIG chance on the world’s comic book readership, but they’re bound to be disappointed with us and the voting results. In comparison to similar real-world vigilante documentary efforts, most notably “Kick-Ass”, “Twilight Guardian” is certainly going to pale.

To be fair, Troy Hickman COULD be toying with us. Perhaps Troy is deftly introducing us to a brutally geek girl so introverted and incapable of having a relationship that she’s making a desperate case / excuse for her pathetic existence’s loneliness as part and parcel to the life of a crime fighter. She’s not “anti-social”. She’s just too busy performing neighborhood watch duties to have a normal life. Right. And this premise COULD be interesting as a study of a psychotic-comic-book-fan-turned-vigilante, albeit via sequential art.

Despite an interesting premise though, following the Twilight Guardian, alter-ego of the aforementioned comic fan in question, simply does NOT work. If this is our heroine, to HELL with her. I just can’t connect, and she’s simply pathetic. She goes from altruistic neighborhood protector to vandal pretty damn quick. Her neighborhood watch, in the guise of crime fighter’s patrol, feels more like a series of peeping Tom ops. Her internal / journal dialogue feels ignorant, stunted, and wholly delusional. I’m just “Wha?” from the get-go. And am I supposed to feel affinity with the Twilight Guardian simply because she has a comic book collection? Perhaps AWE that her collection dwarfs my own? How about shock that she would have let alone actually READ one of her favorite issues… from NINETEEN FORTY-THREE?! Who the hell is going to relate to or even root for this character? Don’t tell me. I’d rather NOT know.

And when, if at all, does the Twilight Guardian SLEEP? Going to work all day, coming home, reading a comic, planning her route to patrol her “jurisdiction”, walking around ALL NIGHT, and arriving back home at SUNRISE? Presumably to go back to work? Look, if this is supposed to be what happens in the really real world when a totally mental girl decides to be a real life superhero, then let’s keep it real. I’ve PULLED all nighters after working all day—you do NOT go to work the next day. Certainly not day in and day out. Or maybe you try, but you get fired pretty damn quick for sleeping on the job. “Twilight Guardian” is plagued with similar not-so-real-life late-night inconsistencies, too, that simply do NOT help this title out AT ALL.

The art was a bit disappointing, but passable. Since the main character pretty much does nothing but walk around the neighborhood with her hands in her hoody’s pockets, there really isn’t much of a range of character poses or motion. Vehicles, building, etc. feel crude and straight out of “King of the Hill”. People look like bendy dolls. It’s a style, but not one I really care for. Better than a great deal of the action-pose, no-background, mainstream comic fluff we’re subjected to, though. The art for the interspersed “classic” comic panels is pretty decent—I enjoyed it AND it’s accompanying dialogue more than anything.

“Abdullah Oblongata”. heh. Good one. Much too little to win me over, though.

This is the aggravating burn I felt with the inconsistency of the LAST “Pilot Season”. Some things never change. Of three “Pilot Season” efforts I’ve read so far, “Twilight Guardian” definitely ranks last, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine reading another comic as flat-out BORING as this. Perhaps I just didn’t get it. Perhaps this was Troy Hickman warming up. Perhaps this was all just prelude and set-up to something darker, deeper, and / or more daring, but I seriously doubt I’d be willing to chance another $3 on Troy Hickman breaking out of his shell along with convincing “Twilight Guardian” to do so.

Honestly, I thought that it was pretty good. It’s a pilot season, of course it’s not going to be perfect. I enjoyed the little details that she gave us about who she has encountered. I also like her suspicious nature. I give it a 4/5. Hopefully we’ll learn more abot her in the next issue.