FIRST ISSUE: THE LUCK OF HUCK

An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode”—that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

 

THE LUCK OF HUCK

Huck’s eponymous hero is a big hulking strong guy who goes around doing good deeds for the sheer pleasure of it — he pulls a neighbor’s truck out of the ditch, removes a stump that another neighbor’s tractor can’t budge, takes out the trash for the whole town, buys lunch for everyone in line behind him, and he goes to North Africa and frees 200 girls taken captive by Bobo Haram. The first issue opens with a prolonged silent sequence during which we see Huck dive off a cliff into the ocean or a big lake where, underwater, he finds a woman’s necklace that she thought she’d lost in the garbage. We meet a couple women, one a new arrival to the town; and the other is telling her about Huck, saying it’s important that Huck’s abilities and function in the town stay secret. And on the last pages of the first issue, he awakens one day to find a mob of news media on his front door step. One of the people in the town, thinking she could make a mint by “going public” with Huck, has revealed the town’s secret.

The book is a series of completed episodes — each of Huck’s good deeds. Thanks in part to Rafael Alburquerque’s supple line and Dave McCaig’s modeling colors, we like Huck, a perpetually cheerful fellow. And Mark Millar’s story both introduces us to the character, his personality, and brings us to the cliffhanger that ends the issue. I’ve been coming back for the last six issues.