Review by Frank Plowright
In a small rural American town there’s a big hunk of a guy who works at the local petrol station. He likes making people happy, so when something’s lost he finds it and returns it anonymously. Beyond his ability to track things down and prodigious strength, there’s a mystery about Huck, who was just left in the town as a baby with a note asking that he be looked after. He saves lives and he helps people out, which is a well kept secret among the locals who figure it’s better things stay that way. They don’t.
Did Mark Millar feel he needed to write a story lacking cynicism, deliberately shocking moments and cruelty, three characteristics common to much of his work? Well, that’s what Huck is for a while, reaching the stage of pastiche as Huck stops traffic to ensure a family of ducks safely cross the road. Huck himself is not quite Forrest Gump, but in his simplicity certainly a throwback to a perceived simpler era usually only seen in black and white, but not quite Of Mice and Men’s Lennie. A more generously minded Obelix is a good fit.
Rafael Albuquerque’s impressionistic style is ideal for the hinterland Huck occupies and works really well for the character himself. He’s defined, but try to form a picture of him in your mind after reading Huck and it’s sort of blurred, which isn’t any great problem. Scenes more in keeping with territory Albuquerque usually occupies are as good as they’ve ever been.
They emerge because Huck being revealed to the world leads to a chance to solve the mystery of his origin, and Millar avoiding shocking moments and cruelty doesn’t last. It’s a shame, because despite Millar over-egging the compassion, those early chapters are far more interesting than the standard action thriller material over the final chapters. The feeling is that Millar’s actually unable to play that tune any longer despite beginning his US career writing comics about the animated Superman. There’s good use of a super power toward the end, but questions remain unanswered, possibly intended for a sequel that never manifested.
