Big Man Plans #1
Story: Eric Powell and Tim Wiesch
Art: Eric Powell
Publisher: Image Comics
Every so often comics get away from their high soaring superhero mythos to tell stories that kick you to the ground and shove your face in the mud. Big Man Plans, from Image Comics, is one of those books. It’s an unrelenting dropkick to the groin that puts a mirror to those a**hole parts of humanity we wish didn’t exist, and it does so in the best way possible.
Big Man Plans is the story of a little person who suffers through a lifetime of ridicule, abuse, and abandonment. When he finally snaps, it’s the world that has to pay for it. Though you’ll never learn the main character’s name, you will not only see but also feel the anguish of the traumatic events his childhood is laced with. Eric Powell and Tim Wiesch tell the tale of a person who’s had their humanity hollowed out and replaced with a bottomless pit of violence, sex, and alcohol.
Despite the massacre unleashed by this little man; you can’t help but find yourself on his side, almost from page one. Wiesch and Powell might have crafted a character with a small stature but he has a huge presence. You’ll even see a little too much of that presence at one point. By the end of the book you’ll have a set up for a revenge story the likes of Kill Bill.
Powell brings his A+ game to the book’s art. He embraces the gritty ugliness needed to make this story work. Even when the book goes into heavy exposition he manages to keep the story visually interesting with an attention to detail few artists today possess. The tunnel flashback is probably going to be one of my favorite sequences of 2015. He’s like a tiny Punisher! Much like Powell’s work on The Goon, the book just flows in a way most books this bleak and dark could not.
Powell and Wiesch figuratively took “Walk” by Pantera and turned it into fire breathing dragon of a comic. Sometimes we all need a song that makes you want to break stuff and Big Man Plans is that anthem. This is a book that deserves a place on your pull list. Big Man Plans is a near perfect comic book gut-check. It’s good while at the same time making you feel bad and once in awhile we could all use that in our lives.
After all, in the age of twitter and message board comments; don’t we all have an inner angry little man?
Follow me on twitter @bouncingsoul217 where the skies are blue and hatred is my gatorade.