Brain Boy #0

Released by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: December 11, 2013

Matt Price, or the derisively-named Brain Boy, returns for an early-history story that fleshes out more of this unique character.

Here, Price is called in by the U.S. government to help ensure the G8 meeting location is safe for the President to attend. Price is able to scan telepathically for any missed security threats, like a member of an Occupy group that didn't report that on his application. Things seem to be running tightly until all of the Secret Service begin committing suicide all at once. This provides more details to the different types of telepaths at play in Brain Boy's world, with “readers” and “writers” at work, trying to move one step ahead of their enemies. It also allows for detailing his interaction with his handlers at Albright Industries, as the customer service rep comedically walks through a pre-written script for handling just such a contingency, detailing which special pills Price needs to take to survive.

Price is told to extract himself at this point since he's too valuable. Instead, though, he tries to reverse the damage of suicidal and berserker soldiers as fast as he can but the casualties are piling up and the President (and his “nuclear football” of a suitcase) are in danger. He manages to turn the berserker soldiers on each other but not before the actual prize has been stolen - a young girl named Karen who's very much like Price (and nearly as powerful). He and the lone surviving agent are able to quickly track the girl's location to a remote farm and, here, Price finally comes face to face with his foe, another telepath as powerful and dangerous as himself.

The bloody showdown details more of the larger insurrection of telepaths at work here and the murky grey area where Price himself now stands, saving Karen but left with more questions than answers. Fred van Lente's on-going series gets some great detail here that serves to inform the series as perfectly as a zero issue should. And the artwork from Freddie Williams II is plain outstanding here, with great uses of frame-blocking and color to make the action sequences really vibrate.

A great addition to the Brain Boy series!