Review by Frank Plowright
Oliver Leif has super powers, exceptionally intense super powers, but can only use them for ten minutes before they cut out. It’s an arbitrary limitation, but a viable concept in investigating what makes a superhero. Who’s braver rushing into a burning building, Superman knowing he’s invulnerable or Oliver knowing he’s dead if he doesn’t time things right?
As a teenager starting school in a new town, Oliver has another hurdle to overcome, and it’s to his school life that Kaare Andrews devotes the greatest attention. It’s not greatly original, relying on the universal problems teenagers have, their insecurities and the tedium of school, but Andrews is one hell of an artist, so he’s redefining the familiar visually and doing it exceptionally well. The cast fair leap from the page in what would otherwise be ordinary school scenes, with the only artistic downside being an overly fussy superhero costume.
Two threatening anomalies interfere with school life. The new head teacher can compel people to do what he says, and someone in the neighbourhood is being hunted down with some pretty expensive technology. If that seems rather random, it may help to know E-Ratic is set in the same world as The Resistance, where a lot of people died from a virus, but a fair percentage of survivors developed super powers and are known as Reborns. E-Ratic, though, stands apart with no knowledge of the parent series needed.
There’s a lot of fun to be had as Oliver explores his new world, with the growing relationship with class stunner Kristen Smith nicely handled, and the art is as stunning as Kristen, but while the ideas are all viable, they never quite gel. The balance between Oliver’s activities and connecting subplots is tipped too far toward Oliver, so the subplots seem forgotten, and while the intention is to be light-hearted, this can slip over into caricature, especially as far as the teachers are concerned. These aren’t fatal problems, and perhaps E-Ratic2: Recharged will address some of them.
