The Death-Ray

The Death-Ray by Daniel Clowes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Andy puffs on a cigarette at age seventeen, he finds that he has super strength for a limited time. Coupled with a mysterious pistol he inherited from his father, he fights crime as The Death-Ray!

I've recently become interested in Daniel Clowes and my wife bought me this as a surprise. The art is standard Clowes, although it seems like there are some Ditko Spider-Man homages in it. It's an oversized book, not unlike the Charles Burns books that have come out in relatively recent years. The larger size makes for an impressive presentation. I'd hate to read this at comic size. More than one page uses a five by five grid. A lot of comic artists make me think I couldn't write and draw a comic in a thousand years. Clowes makes me think I could do it if I buckled down and re-learned how to draw the Archie characters for a few months. It's inspiring, in a way. I enjoy Clowes' artwork if that isn't clear.

The story reads like a super hero deconstruction written by Wes Anderson, although I'm sure it was written before Anderson came to prominence. Andy is a misfit that lives with his elderly grandfather. He has a friend, another misfit named Louie, and a girlfriend in California that he writes to that never writes him back. So what would an outcast nerd do with super strength and a disintegrator pistol? Something like this, I'm afraid.

There's only 48 pages so I don't want to divulge too much of the plot. Suffice to say, Andy starts as a misfit, becomes a super hero of sorts, and ends as a misfit. When your powers hinge on smoking cigarettes, shit is bound to go south eventually.

The Death-Ray is a fun, sensitive super hero deconstruction. Four out of five death-rays.

View all my reviews