The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys Review: Behind the Band

It’s pretty rare for a comic book to be based off of a band (KISS and GWAR immediately come to mind.) It’s even rarer for a comic to be a sequel to an album. Such is the case with “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” by former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and Shaun Simon, based off of “My Chemical Romance’s” 2010 album “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.”

The end result is a dull rehash of things we’ve all seen before.

In a post-apocalyptic world, we meet a nameless girl who a gang called “The Killjoys” swore to protect. They died when they started a fight with the evil empire of Battery City and the girl lived. The rest of the comic is about the girl meeting another gang who adored the killjoys and she stays with them.

The premise sounds basic because it is. The girl contributes absolutely nothing to the story. She’s just there as a symbol for “The Killjoys.” The problem is that this comic is supposed to be, in Way’s words “a coming of age story about a young girl.” If that’s true, why is she so invisible in this first volume?

The real characters are the followers getting into brawls with other gangs. The gang feels like any other desert gang from practically every 80s-early 90s post- apocalyptic what have you such as “Fist of the North Star,” “Tank Girl,” “Barb Wire” and the movie version of ‘Double Dragon.” They even have the weird colored hair, leather clothes and one of them has spikes.

These characters are also one dimensional. There’s nothing interesting about them, nor would you care about what happens to them.

Speaking of post- apocalyptic settings, this has it all: Desert biker gangs, robotic prostitutes, an evil empire that controls everything and a mega city where the sun never shines. It seems like the writers wanted to cram in all the details and forgot about making a halfway decent story. It’s all just there.

Even the art by Becky Cloonan isn’t that outstanding. Nothing stands out, everything looks like things we’ve seen before and there are some awkward moments. These moments have to do with continuity. One character falls and in the next panel that character is on top of a character that logically should not be on the bottom.

For those wondering how this is a sequel to an album and want to hear that album will be disappointed. “The Killjoys” and the setting only make a passing mention in the songs and one track where a DJ mentions that the gang got into trouble. It just doesn’t add up on how that could be made into an entire comic series

“The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” is a dull, uninspired comic that doesn’t stand out at all. It fails in its purpose and turns into something else with bland characters, an all too familiar setting and art. At least “KISS” and “GWAR” got it right.