Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Starring Feedback [Comic]

Stan Lee (Author), Will Conrad (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2007

Special preview booklet for Dark Horse Comics Who Wants to Be a Superhero comic was originaly distributed on Free Comic Book Day in 2007. Flashback to summer 2006: the SciFi Channel, Nash Entertainment, and comics legend Stan Lee helped turn an ordinary person into an actual comic-book superhero! This year they're set to do it again, and to kick things off, Dark Horse presents the origin of last year's winner, Feedback! Computer whiz Matthew Atherton is tricked by Ironside--the world's deadliest terrorist--into helping him perfect an unstoppable robot vehicle, little knowing that Ironside intends to use the vehicle to destroy Matthew's hometown! Left for dead by the terrorists, an unexpected event turns Matthew into Feedback, giving him one chance to redeem himself and save the city!

Product Details

• Comic
• Publisher: Dark Horse; First Print edition (2007)
• ASIN: B000S8FVCG
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,299,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars After waiting months and months Matthew Atherton finally gets his "Feedback" comic book, July 6, 2007

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Starring Feedback (Comic)

"Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" on the Sci Fi Channel was summer was certainly a different sort of reality television series. Hundreds of people showed up in costumes as superheroes to be whittled down by the producers to a dozen who be challenged by Stan Lee each week to behave like a real superhero. Simple tasks usually contained a more fundamental challenge and one of the interesting aspects was how Lee would lecture the contestants each week on what it means to be a comic book superhero. The most surprising aspect was that there were some truly emotional moments, such as when Monkey Woman made it across that backyard with the two attack dogs hanging on to her, Major Victory's phone call from his estranged daughter, and Feedback's story about how he turned to Lee's "Spider-Man" comic books after the death of his father for a role model. Nobody took this contest more seriously than Feedback (real name Matthew Atherton), and he was my pick to win, which he did, defeating Fat Momma in the finale. As a result of winning the contest here we have issue #1 from Dark Horse Comics of "Who Wants to be a Superhero?" featuring Feedback. Scripted by Lee with art by Will Conrad, this comic book will be of interest to those who followed the series and of little concern to the rest of the comic book reading universe.

Feedback, a.k.a. Matthew Atherton, is a 34 year-old software engineer. His super powers are that he absorbs power and abilities from video games that he plays, which allows him to generate a feedback field that disrupts electronics within 15 feet. He is also a computer genius and his catch phrase is "Game on!" But his vulnerabilities are that power lines give him headaches and microwaves give him nausea, which makes for an interesting pair of limitations on the character. These are the powers that are described inside the front cover of this comic book, which are different from his powers as established on the character's official Sci Fi channel website. But when you are talking about things like having to decide what video game to play in the morning which may or may not be completely inappropriate for that day's challenge and losing a random part of his memory each time he uses an emulated power, no wonder Lee refined things a bit here.

The chief charm of the comic book is that Lee works in such aspects of Atherton's real life, such as being the fatherless youth who turned to comic books and ending up meeting a girl named Sarah Blevins, who will become his wife. I especially liked the last part because every time I hear about how Lee and Kirby changed comic books when they came up with the "Fantastic Four," I always remember that it was Lee's wife who urged him to write a comic book the way he wanted for once. The story covers Feedback's origin (amazing what a bolt of lightning can do if you are clutching a game controller) and his first battle as a superhero. Actually, his powers do not come into play that much and he uses his brains as well. The artwork of Feedback being created during the storm is the best in the issue and the hero sort of looks like Atherton. Lee indulged in several instances of self-reflexivity ("I feel like I'm living in a comic book," our hero thinks at the end) and the net result is more fun than it is memorable. But that was the expectation here, even if we had to wait until the same month that the second season of the show premiers to finally get our hands on this comic book (I know Mindset won the Internet voting to get on the show, but I think Ms. Limelight and Pantheon sound interesting for Season 2).

The back of the comic book includes the covers for the other 10 superheroes from Season 1 and it is strange that the cover for the actual comic book is the most boring one because it is the only one without any sort of background. It is basically the same cover we saw during the series, except then it said "Taking heroism to the next level" back then and now it just declares "And the winner is...Feedback." Feedback is also supposed to be a featured character in a Sci Fi Channel original Thursday Night Movie, but given how long we had to wait for the comic book (I had just about forgotten about it and I know I am not alone in that regard), I hate to think how long we will have to wait for the movie, even though Atherton, who will be playing the character, said at one point . There is also going to be action figures for Feedback, Fat Momma, and Captain Victory (the final three from Season 1) and maybe those will be out by Christmas (maybe even the next one).