Helm (2008) #1

THE HELM #1 (of 4) Jim Hardison (W), Bart Sears (P), and Randy Elliott (I)

What if you had a magical superpower and it hated your guts? Matt Blurdy's day has gone from crap to worse. Not only did his girlfriend break his heart at work-and in front of all of the video-store patrons-but he just got fired. All that's left to do is minibike his sorry, thirty-year-old (and freshly unemployed!) butt back home to his mom's basement and drown his sorrows in a bucket of extra crispy chicken while contemplating where his life went wrong. On the way home, Matt decides to quiet his aching heart with a brief detour to a garage sale. When an ancient-looking helmet calls to him as 'the Chosen One,' exhorting him to don the mantle of the 'Valhalladrim,' Matt touches it with trembling fingers-and is jolted by raw magical power. Holy crap! Is he going to be a superhero? Is this why he always felt special even when everyone else thought he was a loser? Then the helm gets a sense of whom it's dealing with. Suddenly, it changes its tune: 'I was mistaken. You are not the chosen one. Good day.' But for once in his life, Matt's not taking no for an answer. Not today. • A high-spirited new spin on the 'destiny' genre, teaming artist Bart Sears (Captain America, Batman) with comics newcomer Jim Hardison!