Common Grounds #6 Review

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Reviewer: Chris Delloiacono
Story Title: This’ll be the Day

Written by: Troy Hickman
Penciled and Inked by: Sam Kieth

Story Title: Loose Ends

Written by: Troy Hickman
Penciled: Dan Jurgens
Inked by: Al Vey

Colored by: Guy Major
Lettered by: Dreamer Design’s Robin Spehar, Mark Roslan, and Dennis Heisler
Editor: N/A
Publisher: Top Cow > Image Comics

Common Grounds is a book that might have slipped through your radar, it slipped through mine for four issues before I joined on board. The book’s six-issue run comes to a close this month in spectacular fashion. Although I only have this mini-series as a barometer of judging, I’m willing to say that Troy Hickman understands what makes a great superhero story as well as anyone who has ever worked in comics. The entire series has been excellent, yet this issue goes one step beyond and is one of the finest comics of the year.

In case you don’t know, Common Grounds can most easily be compared with Astro City. It’s by no means a clone, but Common Grounds like Astro City focuses on creator owned superheroes that have real problems and seem to be far more real than their Marvel and DC counterparts. Like Astro City, no character in Common Grounds is a central focus for the book. Hell, in Common Grounds no superhero is the central focus even for a full issue as every issue has been split into two separate stories. Much like AC revolves around people and places in the fictional city of the same name, every story in Common Grounds has something to do with a string of coffee shops catering to the super-powered called, you guessed it, Common Grounds.

Issue #6 perfectly illustrates Troy Hickman’s brilliant storytelling sense. Even though the two stories feature characters that we have not met prior to now, the issue serves as a fantastic culmination of the series. It’s got to be an extremely difficult task to pull together a mini-series in the final issue when you aren’t featuring any characters or situations that have appeared before. Yet, Hickman does it perfectly.

The first story centers on the goody-two-shoes heroine American Pi. She’s all about being the best she can be and touting the greatness of her country. The story has incredible bearing on the political climate in America today. Pi is confronted by an angry group of pedestrians after taking down some crooks. They are sick of her unending optimism and her love of a country that they see as not helping them. Pi’s thoughts and feelings about her country seem overly idealistic at first. On closer inspection, she’s not stupid, she knows there are problems, and they need to be corrected. There’s plenty wrong with the country, but there’s so much good too. Hickman hits the optimistic note so well that maybe he should run for office!

The second story is the origin tale of the Common Grounds coffee shop chain. This origin could have run at the head of the series, but clearly serves best as a footnote. Hickman takes the time to give us the background of the establishment and riff on comics in the process. Michael O’Brien is a former hero that started the chain of stores. O’Brien’s reasoning is utterly beautiful and the story has a sad, tragic irony to it that puts the reader firmly in his shoes that you can understand his despair, and even his glimmer of optimism. This was probably my favorite tale of all the stories that have appeared in the book so far.

As far as the art goes, every issue has been outstanding, and this one follows suit! The issue is lent life by the work of Sam Kieth on the opening story and Common Grounds regular Dan Jurgens in the second piece. Kieth’s work perfectly captures the somber mood of the story and Jurgen’s excels with the final story this month.

Superhero-centered comics are becoming increasingly difficult to portray in a fresh light. Characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and innumerable others have been thrown through the meat grinder every way they possibly could and there’s just nothing fresh to be done any more. Common Grounds, much like Robert Kirkman’s Invincible, and the previously mentioned Astro City are doing something totally different, by focusing on telling intensely personal stories about characters that seem like they could be your neighbor.

How do you write something fresh, yet instill it with a classic sense of comic history? It’s no mean feat, and certainly one that few have been successful at. However it’s a feat that Common Grounds may do better than any other series!

Coolness alert: Last week, Image announced a convenient package of the six individual issues of Common Grounds will be available in September for under fifteen bucks! If you haven’t partaken already, you’ll have an amazing opportunity to catch up on all the goodness and for a discount! That’s a true a rarity in the comic biz!