Victories: Touched Review: No Victory Here

A story about a superhero with a dark past, suffering from an existential crisis has been done plenty of times, but is seldom interesting. “Batman” and “The Punisher” manage to pull this off. Michael Avon Oeming’s “Victories: Touched” is not one of them.

In a world that’s gone bad, a superhero vigilante team called “The Victories” is there to keep the peace. One of its members, Faustus, a Batman type hero with Spider-Man’s wise cracks, is haunted by the horrible past caused by his former teacher. He decides to do something about which will almost destroy his psyche.

The story itself reads like a superhero vigilante’s existential crisis. The whole time it’s nothing but Faustus questioning his life and bashing the city. It’s interesting for a while, but becomes a bore after a while. It’s like the reader has to play psychiatrist for the entire story. After a while the reader would not be surprised if Faustus slices his wrists.

The story drags on throughout. The difference between this and something like “Watchmen” is that it had endearing characters and there was a point to the tone. Here, it’s whiny and the seriousness falls apart.

There are also times when the story loses focus to talk about characters that have very little to do with the story. The sole purpose of these characters is supposed to show how messed up the world is and nothing else. It brings the narrative flow to a complete halt.

The rest of “The Victories” are only side characters with little to do with the main story. They don’t even serve as moral support for Faustus. Instead they just appear in random raids and then are pushed aside.

The art does pull off that perfect dark, brooding superhero setting perfectly. Every character, every scene is drawn in dark colors that are reminiscent of some of the darker “Batman” comics. It even has that glowing eyes or blacked out eyes effect seen in these settings.

“Victories: Touched” is a dark comic that starts off interesting but even the art can’t win you over. The bland characters and story aren’t enough to pull this one out of the ashes.