Customer Reviews

Noble Causes Volume 1: In Sickness And In Health

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This series is about the dysfunctional superhero celebrity family of the Nobles. It begins when Liz, a normal woman, is going to marry into the family...then all kinds of drama begins. There are a lot of family and relationship issues going on in this series, and, yes, it may seem soap opera-ish to some. But ultimately it's a fun comic book that hasn't gained as much popularity as it deserves. I actually want to read the rest of the series after having read this trade paperback. It has drama, it has superheroes, it has comedy, it has action, it has romance...

I like to support creator owned projects so I picked up Noble Causes as well as Dynamo 5 recently. Noble Causes is like the E Entertainment version of superheroes. You have got a famous superhero family that is just as concerned by what the press is going to write about them as they do saving the world. This story is a soap opera with explosions, lasers, flying, magic and talking robots. It is a good opening story and the writing is interesting enough that I want to find out more. The art is solid but a little inconsistent. I do like that they reprinted the back up stories. They seem to be important since every time a reference is made to a past event, you can be sure there is a back up tale that explains what happened. I thought it was a fun and different take on super heroes.

With so many of the mainstream American books wallowing in nostalgia, independent books like Noble Causes are a reader's best bet for getting an actual story.

This volume quickly introduces the Noble family, a scientist father, a magic-using mother, three superpowered kids, plus their robot, a bastard son, and their demonic best friend.

Faerber quickly establishes there are serious problems behind their facade of happiness. Simple touches like the mother lighting a cigarette as soon as the cameras are off make them more real and flawed than most comic book heroes.

At the same time Faerber avoids the trap of 'superhero decadence'. The Nobles have their problems but they are not mass-murders masquerading as heroes. They are some very genuine characters, neither angels or demons but just as flawed or noble as ordinary humans.

If you're on the fence, you might want to check out the Noble Causes Archive which is a much fatter black and white reprint of the series.

Noble Causes: In Sickness and in health is a romantic soap opera starring: you guessed it- super heroes! The primary romance is the romance between Race- and plain Jane bookstore owner Liz Donnelly. Add a few classic soap opera twists, including a blacksheep brother, a cheating spouse and a mystery baby and you have Noble Causes.

I enjoyed the story for the most part, although to be honest it was somewhat light. What I didn't like was the art. At times it was well drawn...Other times the art looked like the scrawling of a ten year old. Some characters were hardly recognizable from story to story- you'd think the artist had no reference to work from.

Still the story was fun, and the concept cool. Worth reading, but the artwork lacks consistancy which cost this story a star.

A "normal" woman marries into the Noble family, the world's most famous family of superheroes and complications ensue. Jay Faerber works in all the soap opera conceits, the cheating spouses, surprise pregnancies, murderous family members, and even that old SF stand by, the brain transplant. While Faerber's stated goal is to take a different look at the genre, he really only succeeds in transferring it to the realm of daytime dramas. With art by group of raw talents, NOBLE CAUSES is not so much different as it is derivative.