All-Ages Reviews: Gladstone's School for World Conquerors
Ever wonder what sorts of things the kids of supervillains get up to? Well wonder no more with this review!
Over the years we’ve been treated to just about every angle of a superhero’s story imaginable, their inner turmoil, their unbeatable obstacles, their home life and upbringing. Superhero comics have run long enough that we’ve also gotten a lot of insight into grown villains, but there is a population that, while we have seen it explored, it doesn’t tend to get explored as much - kid supervillains. It’s pretty easy to understand why this would be, I’d imagine most people have a hard time looking at kids as “evil” the same way they can for adults. Kids are innocent, and we want to think the best of them - that even if they make a mistake, they can be reformed.
So, it’s no surprise that when Mark Andrew Smith and Armand Villavert decided to tackle the issue they approached with humor as opposed to drama in their series “Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors”.
Now, before we get into this review, I have to note something about this cover. See the kid in orange at the bottom? The one who looks to be a speedster because he’s in a running pose? He isn’t in this book. No really, he’s not anywhere in it, he’s not even in one of the many crowded backroom shots. He just doesn’t exist. I’m going to guess that this was originally meant to be the team but orange-speedster-kid got dropped from the story for one reason for another, but never dropped from the cover art. I’m curious about why that might be, but regardless that’s why I won’t be talking about him in this story.
The story of the book is pretty much spelled out for you right in the title. It’s a bunch of kids going to a supervillain school. The school was established in a very supervillain way (Gladstone was actually defeated by another villain before the school was built and transformed into a statue which now stands in front of the building. They named it after him to be funny.) Here, the children of various supervillains can learn to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
PRESENTATION!
Kid Nefarious is the main character and has some form of darkness powers. His best friend is an alien named Martian Jones, a science villain. Ghost Girl and Mummy Girl are pretty easy to get based on their ridiculously boring names. Replacing orange-speedster-kid from the cover are the Skull Brothers, two mysterious and creepy kids who don’t really run in the same circles as the other characters, but end up as part of the group mainly through happenstance and no one really seems to mind that they’re there.
"Skull Brothers"...Smith thought long and hard on these names, didn't he?
In all seriousness, I expected there to be a bit more friction between these kids, but I admit I was a bit relieved that there wasn’t. It’s such an old cliché in school-centered stories, and I’m a bit tired of the drama. Kid Nefarious seems so laid back about who he hangs out with, he never seems at all concerned with what others may think of him and it was a nice change of pace to get past that particular hurdle no problem so that we could move on with the story.
…though if you think the skull brothers are creepy with their masks on, they’re FAR worse when the take them off.
We wished him to the cornfield, mother...
It seems at first that it’s just going to be a story about a villain school and what goes on there, but the comic shows us pretty quickly that there’s a bit more going on here. While much is made of public fights between heroes and villains - especially among the kids - the fights may not be the random chance that they appear.
Ooh! And while I'm here let me get your address so I can update my Christmas card list!
It turns out that the heroes and villains actually made a pact many years ago in order to create peace and have a safe world for all their kids to live in. The only real fights any of these villains participate in any more are against their own - rogue villains who don’t like making deals with heroes.
We took a vote and we've decided you're a poo head.
The kids are by and large kept ignorant of this. The skull brothers know as their mother is one such rogue villain, but none of the others do. But the discovery of some comic books leads our…um…protagonists?…to start questioning what they know when they see their parents defeat at the hands of the heroes over and over again.
Why is Mummy Girl surprised? They're her comics.
The writing and concept work because the author made it fairly easy to like and root for the villain kids despite the fact that they’re “evil”. I’m putting quotes around that because the evil they portray in this is much more cartoony, over-the-top evil than anything we might actually consider “evil” by real world standards. In fact, in most ways, the kids seem pretty good, or at the very least “normal”. They’re polite to their elders, show kindness to one another and really balk at the very idea of killing anyone. The skull brothers are the closest any of them get to actual evil and even they have yet to do anything truly horrendous (and I really kind of like them, myself, I find their dynamic interesting even if I am expecting they’ll do something terrible). They’re just kids, though, they haven’t really been exposed to true evil, it’s the parents you’d expect to show true wickedness…except they really don’t either. Oh sure, they have a few more instances of badness, but mostly when we see them worrying about and protecting their kids, and that makes them sympathetic as well, especially since they’re the ones who brokered a peace with the heroes.
Or, you could wait until his friends at school tease him over his ignorance...whatever works.
Arguably, this could ruin the whole premise, since we don’t see a lot of “evil” going on here, there’s no real need for these kids to be “villains”, you could just make them super kids and call it a day, and I do think this is a flaw, but at the same time, it’s nice to have a story where the bad guys aren’t constantly performing unspeakable acts and you can root for a villain protagonist fairly easily. I think using the Saturday morning cartoon definition for evil works better in a setting like this, since you don’t have as much of a worry about unlikable leads.
I want one of these installed at my house!
The art is something I’m a bit hit and miss on. On the downside, the artist has several expressions that he likes to go back to, and that can get a bit dull after a while (not like I’m one to talk, but hey, nobody’s publishing my stuff, haha!). He also doesn’t seem to know how to draw backgrounds, since a LOT of this comic takes place against empty voids which can get very distracting, and sometimes the panels have a rushed or unfinished look to them. On the plus side, the characters poses are nice and dynamic and I’m never confused about what’s going on, and his main strength seems to be in character designs since he’s created tons of super villains and their costumes, many of which just hang out in the background and all of which read as genuine comic book style costumes without falling into the realm of parody.
And what kid EVER thinks their dad looks like a bumbling idiot? Rubbish, I say!
I also have to admit that I greatly enjoy the “comic book” pages that are in this, that really feel like they came from an aged comic. Despite being ostensibly about the villains, this whole series feels like a love-letter to super hero stories in particular and the art of comics in general.
And we cover the full spectrum in 2 panels...impressive!
Overall, I found this book really enjoyable. I don’t really think there’s anything this comic does exceptionally well, but nothing about it is terrible either and with a somewhat unique premise, being merely “good” is enough for me to warrant a recommendation. It has some of the same feel as the movie “Megamind” did, with the villain protagonist and the super-cheesy-but-not-terribly-evil villains, so if you enjoy things like that, you’d probably find something you enjoyed in this. Sadly, while unlike my last review this did get a collected edition released, the comic ends after only 6 issues and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. It teases a sequel in the back, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get to it, since it’s been out a while now. Still, it makes for a fun read for anyone looking for some different comic heroes.
Next time we'll delve into the wonderful world of licensed books for the first time with Rachet and Clank!
...and I'll try to be a bit more timely about this one...
Over the years we’ve been treated to just about every angle of a superhero’s story imaginable, their inner turmoil, their unbeatable obstacles, their home life and upbringing. Superhero comics have run long enough that we’ve also gotten a lot of insight into grown villains, but there is a population that, while we have seen it explored, it doesn’t tend to get explored as much - kid supervillains. It’s pretty easy to understand why this would be, I’d imagine most people have a hard time looking at kids as “evil” the same way they can for adults. Kids are innocent, and we want to think the best of them - that even if they make a mistake, they can be reformed.
So, it’s no surprise that when Mark Andrew Smith and Armand Villavert decided to tackle the issue they approached with humor as opposed to drama in their series “Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors”.
Now, before we get into this review, I have to note something about this cover. See the kid in orange at the bottom? The one who looks to be a speedster because he’s in a running pose? He isn’t in this book. No really, he’s not anywhere in it, he’s not even in one of the many crowded backroom shots. He just doesn’t exist. I’m going to guess that this was originally meant to be the team but orange-speedster-kid got dropped from the story for one reason for another, but never dropped from the cover art. I’m curious about why that might be, but regardless that’s why I won’t be talking about him in this story.
The story of the book is pretty much spelled out for you right in the title. It’s a bunch of kids going to a supervillain school. The school was established in a very supervillain way (Gladstone was actually defeated by another villain before the school was built and transformed into a statue which now stands in front of the building. They named it after him to be funny.) Here, the children of various supervillains can learn to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
PRESENTATION!
Kid Nefarious is the main character and has some form of darkness powers. His best friend is an alien named Martian Jones, a science villain. Ghost Girl and Mummy Girl are pretty easy to get based on their ridiculously boring names. Replacing orange-speedster-kid from the cover are the Skull Brothers, two mysterious and creepy kids who don’t really run in the same circles as the other characters, but end up as part of the group mainly through happenstance and no one really seems to mind that they’re there.
"Skull Brothers"...Smith thought long and hard on these names, didn't he?
In all seriousness, I expected there to be a bit more friction between these kids, but I admit I was a bit relieved that there wasn’t. It’s such an old cliché in school-centered stories, and I’m a bit tired of the drama. Kid Nefarious seems so laid back about who he hangs out with, he never seems at all concerned with what others may think of him and it was a nice change of pace to get past that particular hurdle no problem so that we could move on with the story.
…though if you think the skull brothers are creepy with their masks on, they’re FAR worse when the take them off.
We wished him to the cornfield, mother...
It seems at first that it’s just going to be a story about a villain school and what goes on there, but the comic shows us pretty quickly that there’s a bit more going on here. While much is made of public fights between heroes and villains - especially among the kids - the fights may not be the random chance that they appear.
Ooh! And while I'm here let me get your address so I can update my Christmas card list!
It turns out that the heroes and villains actually made a pact many years ago in order to create peace and have a safe world for all their kids to live in. The only real fights any of these villains participate in any more are against their own - rogue villains who don’t like making deals with heroes.
We took a vote and we've decided you're a poo head.
The kids are by and large kept ignorant of this. The skull brothers know as their mother is one such rogue villain, but none of the others do. But the discovery of some comic books leads our…um…protagonists?…to start questioning what they know when they see their parents defeat at the hands of the heroes over and over again.
Why is Mummy Girl surprised? They're her comics.
The writing and concept work because the author made it fairly easy to like and root for the villain kids despite the fact that they’re “evil”. I’m putting quotes around that because the evil they portray in this is much more cartoony, over-the-top evil than anything we might actually consider “evil” by real world standards. In fact, in most ways, the kids seem pretty good, or at the very least “normal”. They’re polite to their elders, show kindness to one another and really balk at the very idea of killing anyone. The skull brothers are the closest any of them get to actual evil and even they have yet to do anything truly horrendous (and I really kind of like them, myself, I find their dynamic interesting even if I am expecting they’ll do something terrible). They’re just kids, though, they haven’t really been exposed to true evil, it’s the parents you’d expect to show true wickedness…except they really don’t either. Oh sure, they have a few more instances of badness, but mostly when we see them worrying about and protecting their kids, and that makes them sympathetic as well, especially since they’re the ones who brokered a peace with the heroes.
Or, you could wait until his friends at school tease him over his ignorance...whatever works.
Arguably, this could ruin the whole premise, since we don’t see a lot of “evil” going on here, there’s no real need for these kids to be “villains”, you could just make them super kids and call it a day, and I do think this is a flaw, but at the same time, it’s nice to have a story where the bad guys aren’t constantly performing unspeakable acts and you can root for a villain protagonist fairly easily. I think using the Saturday morning cartoon definition for evil works better in a setting like this, since you don’t have as much of a worry about unlikable leads.
I want one of these installed at my house!
The art is something I’m a bit hit and miss on. On the downside, the artist has several expressions that he likes to go back to, and that can get a bit dull after a while (not like I’m one to talk, but hey, nobody’s publishing my stuff, haha!). He also doesn’t seem to know how to draw backgrounds, since a LOT of this comic takes place against empty voids which can get very distracting, and sometimes the panels have a rushed or unfinished look to them. On the plus side, the characters poses are nice and dynamic and I’m never confused about what’s going on, and his main strength seems to be in character designs since he’s created tons of super villains and their costumes, many of which just hang out in the background and all of which read as genuine comic book style costumes without falling into the realm of parody.
And what kid EVER thinks their dad looks like a bumbling idiot? Rubbish, I say!
I also have to admit that I greatly enjoy the “comic book” pages that are in this, that really feel like they came from an aged comic. Despite being ostensibly about the villains, this whole series feels like a love-letter to super hero stories in particular and the art of comics in general.
And we cover the full spectrum in 2 panels...impressive!
Overall, I found this book really enjoyable. I don’t really think there’s anything this comic does exceptionally well, but nothing about it is terrible either and with a somewhat unique premise, being merely “good” is enough for me to warrant a recommendation. It has some of the same feel as the movie “Megamind” did, with the villain protagonist and the super-cheesy-but-not-terribly-evil villains, so if you enjoy things like that, you’d probably find something you enjoyed in this. Sadly, while unlike my last review this did get a collected edition released, the comic ends after only 6 issues and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. It teases a sequel in the back, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get to it, since it’s been out a while now. Still, it makes for a fun read for anyone looking for some different comic heroes.
Next time we'll delve into the wonderful world of licensed books for the first time with Rachet and Clank!
...and I'll try to be a bit more timely about this one...