Score:
★★★★1/2 (4.5/5)
Toxic fandom is a reality. On every digital platform, you can find the worst "fans" not just criticizing popular culture properties like comic book entertainment but attaching sentiments to the real-life people behind those same properties. There's this constant blurring of the line between passionate opinionated fans to belligerent entitled assholes. It isn't enough to say something was not good but that the creator, actor, or writer destroyed their childhood and should die. It sometimes escalates to online harassment, or worse.
'Rogue's Gallery' vividly captures this toxicity by portraying a group of young people behind those nasty comment sections and chatroom discussions and takes it one step further. Dodge, Yuri, Haley, and Kyle have strong opinions about their favorite comic book character that's been long adapted into a TV show, Red Rogue. Everything that has befallen their beloved fictional superhero on the show is blamed on the actress playing her, Maisie Wade. Whether on a group chat or gathering around a table at the comic book shop, the friends believe she is the worst person in the world. Logic be damned and gossip is regurgitated as truth, Wade is the cause of all the problems surrounding the show. They feel entitled to a version of the character that they've invested all their lives in and how dare she ruin their childhoods by veering away from comic book canon. She must be stopped.
Things escalate when they feel slighted and personally attacked by things that in reality have nothing to do with them but their collective egos have been irrationally offended. When the more reasonable but bullied Kyle reaches a breaking point from an abusive family situation, he agrees to join the group in paying a visit to Wade's home. Hannah Rose May has an impeccable ear for dialogue which makes the very realistic but disturbing discussions between these unreasonably angry fans all the more frightening. It's the kind of thing we've read and heard on many podcasts and comment sections. The heightened hate and vitriol over something so trivial and directed at an actress seem too familiar and unnerving. This sense of animosity among them hangs over the issue as we await where this goes and just how they'll direct that anger. May continually builds the tension and the payoff is very satisfying.
Justin Mason's pencil work and designs are so intricate and thorough that every panel is chockful of details. There's an exciting action sequence from the TV show that's electrified by Triona Farrell's colors at the beginning of the issue but Mason excels throughout with attention to a lived-in realism. From Kyle's messy room to an inviting poolside to the berserker crescendo of the ending, Mason draws the reader in and the story is better for it.
'Rogue's Gallery' is a devilish delight that's as timely and as harrowing as real life. There's wish fulfillment here and I'm all for it as the tables are turned on a bunch of toxic so-called fans. What happens sparks joy deep inside my kind heart where I want assholes to suffer. We've all seen the unstable rantings of the loudest critics of pop culture and it's about time their actions met some consequences. May and Mason offer a riveting bloody satire made for this era.
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