Bigger Than Capes

Writer, Artist, Letterer, Cover: Tess Stone
Editor: Alex Antone
Production Design: Carina Taylor
Based on the game Trover Saves The Universe by Justin Roiland
Publisher: Image

First off, I’d never heard of Trover Saves The Universe until this issue materialised in my inbox last Friday. This seems to be a bit of a trend with video game comics and Bigger Than Capes, so I can’t really speak of how much this will appeal to someone who’s played the game.

Trover isn’t the focus of this issue, really he’s the narrator as we follow two of his work mates, Klover and Bo. The duo find themselves at the bottom of their work leaderboard at ICJ (Important Cosmic Jobs) which means one of them will be getting killed by their boss for not being good enough… Yeah you read that right, it’s a pretty serious incentive to be good at your job. To try and escape their impending doom, both Klover and Bo decide to break into the apartment of Gaff, who’s the head of the leaderboard, to try and discover his secrets so they can be just as good.

The world of Trover, Klover and Bo was completely new to me, and while Trover’s introductory scene made me initially feel like I might be missing something, that feeling didn’t last for long. Once we get into the actual story this doesn’t feel like anything other than a standalone ridiculous comedy.

It’s quickly done but we get a real sense of who Klover and Bo are before proceeding to the main story of them both independently breaking into Gaff’s apartment to try and discover why he’s so successful. There’s some twists in there that I wasn’t expecting, and the idea of breaking the fourth wall being an actual plot point is really interesting.

This issue is a chaotic ride and I think Tess Stone does a great job of taking on almost all the roles in creating this comic and, while it maintains the feel and look of Justin Roiland’s work, there’s definitely a sense of individuality here. Although this is largely a comedy book, there’s at least one bit of social commentary that I particularly enjoyed.

From the blurb it seems that this miniseries is set in the same universe as the video game, while not explicitly being the game’s narrative. So I’d like to think that if you’ve played Trover Saves The Universe and enjoyed it enough to check out this comic it will give you something you haven’t seen before. However if you’re like me and you’re completely new to this world I think you’ll have a lot of fun with this first issue of Trover Saves The Universe, it’s definitely piqued my interest to check out the game.