“I looked in the mirror, what did I see? a nine stone weakling with knobbly knees”
The Tin Can Society is a nice thick collection from Image that costs only $19.99 even though it clocks in at 202 pages, so that ain’t bad. It’s written by Peter Warren (with story credits going to Warren and Rick Remender), drawn by Francesco Mobili, colored by Chris Chucky, and lettered by Jackie Marzan after Rus Wooton lettered issue #1. 
Got all that? Ok!
Warren takes an old chestnut of a superhero story — what if superheroes in the real world, sort of? — and puts on interesting spin on it. His hero, Johnny Moore, is dead at the beginning of the series — the first panel is his dead, broken body lying on a floor — but that’s not the interesting spin. The spin is that Johnny had spina bifida, but because he was a genius, he built an Iron Man-esque exoskeleton that allowed him to walk, and the natural progression from there was … superhero. I mean, of course! He first built a wildly successful prosthetics company, of course, but then realized he could do more. His only four friends in the world — those who befriended him in grade school, when he had been adopted by Christian Scientists — are still in his life, and his only female friend — Kasia — wants to get to the bottom of his death. She thinks it might be one of the friend group who murdered him, but of course, it goes much deeper than that!
It’s a nifty conceit, as it allows us to plausibly believe in Iron Man — Tony Stark’s heart thing is always a bit unbelievable, but spina bifida is, you know, an actual ailment — and Warren does a good job showing how Johnny could come up with it and gradually become a superhero rather than just leaping to it (so to speak). He does a good job building up the other characters — they’re stereotypes in some ways, but Warren does well to shade them so that they become more like real people as we learn more about them. The story is, ultimately, very plot-driven, so while we do get some decent character development, it’s all in service to moving the plot where it needs to go, which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but doesn’t always allow for diversions. Of course Kasia would end up fucking Johnny. Of course Adam, the football player, would be resentful about getting injured and losing his chance to go pro. Of course Val, the engineer, would be bitter about being shunted out of the spotlight as Johnny became more famous. It doesn’t make the story bad, but it does make it a bit more predictable, because Warren needs to get to certain plot points, and it’s kind of clear how he’s going to get to them. 
The book is never dull, and Warren throws in some plot twists (one is really well done, while another is kind of obvious), and eventually we get to a big confrontation, as we knew we must. There’s a lot going on in the book that makes it a bit deeper than a more corporate superhero book, because Warren and Remender don’t have to worry about pleasing overlords, and some of the issues they bring up are very interesting, but they also want to do a big ol’ superhero action book, so some of the interesting ideas get left behind and some of the character development gets short-shrifted. It’s frustrating, because I enjoy the book, but I also think it could be better with not a lot of tweaks. Oh well.
Mobili does nice work on the art. He has a soft line that makes the people look realer and seems like it wouldn’t work with the armor that Johnny wears, but, honestly, it makes it look more like a hard polymer rather than just metal, which would be ridiculously heavy anyway. While Chuckry gives it a shine like metal, Mobili’s softer lines make it seem lighter and easier to manipulate. Mobili does a nice job with the characters — when they’re young, they’re obviously full of vigor, and when they’re older, he does well showing how the weight of the world is sitting on them. They move through the book like real people, unsure of their strengths and weaknesses, occasionally full of bravado and occasionally panicked, and it helps ground the book nicely. He does fine with the bigger action stuff, although occasionally his panels seem a bit cramped for what’s going on in them, making the perspective a bit wonky. It’s a bit strange that Mobili seems to be better at the quieter stuff than the big action stuff, yet Warren keeps writing big action stuff. Again, his “superhero” stuff is not bad at all, but it does seem like he’s more comfortable with drawing people dealing with difficult shit rather than armored dudes shooting fire out of their hands.
I do have to mention, though, something that probably bugs only me. I know Fraser has written about the “superpowered disabled” person before, and you might think you have one here, but Johnny doesn’t quite fall into that category, because Warren does make sure to flesh him out a bit, so his disability doesn’t define him as much as you’d think and it’s not like he gets superpowers from his disability. 
Warren does a pretty good job showing how difficult his life would be but also shows how he could overcome it, to an extent. What bugs me, as a father of a special needs kid, is the fact that writers always seem to focus on a physical disability, rather than a mental one. I get that superhero comics are “physical” stories, so if you have a physical disability but your brain is intact, you can think your way out of it and create, say, Iron Man armor. It’s frustrating to me, mainly because my daughter has a physical disability that stems from her mental injury, so she cannot “think” her way out of it. Johnny, essentially, is no longer disabled by the time he builds his armor, and that’s fine, and it works for the story, but it bugs me, because I imagine there are a lot of people who simply can’t “think” their way out of a disability. I know, it’s a “me” problem — my daughter will never be able to play chess or read a book even though she’s in a wheelchair, and an invention like Johnny’s probably wouldn’t help her because she wouldn’t be able to control it anyway. Sorry, this is just me venting. Disabled characters in comics and other fiction always bug me, because they’re disabled just as much as the plot needs, and real life, sadly, doesn’t work that way.
All right, enough bellyaching! The Tin Can Society is a pretty good superhero murder mystery with some cool twists and some that you can see coming a mile away. But it chugs along nicely, and it looks very nice. Is that enough to get you to pick it up? I don’t know, but that’s not for me to know!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆
