For me, though, it's more than that. As a die-hard comic book fan since the age of two, it's a dream come true.
Everything I loved about comics growing up is encapsulated in Heroes. The heroes, the villains, the powers, everything.
It's a pitch-perfect comic tale, yet is also fresh and original.
What boggles my mind is that Tim Kring*, the show-runner, has never read a comic book. Seriously.
I know, it shocked me too. But it's true. While one of the writers and executive producers is comic great Jeph Loeb**, the man in charge of the show went into this project without a history with, or background in, comic books.
Maybe it's that fact that allows Heroes to feel like a fresh take on the genre. Kring was able to go into the project without feeling like he needed to obey certain cliches or follow certain rules.
Loeb, on the other hand, is an uber-geek like me. He knows everything about comics. I think that the mesh of his comic knowledge and Kring's fresh vision has resulted in a wonderful piece of comic fiction, one that would work as well on the four-color page as it does on the tv screen.
And thank god for that.
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Footnote:
*For the over 30 crowd, it might make you smile to know that Kring wrote for another show involving super-powers, the short lived "Misfits of Science."
**Jeph Loeb's long time collaborator, Tim Sale, is responsible for all of the art in the series, from the paintings to the comics to sketches. His art is great, and I am happy to see him get the attention he deserves.
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