Who’s Bad is one of those superhero comics with an interesting premise that fits into the new wave of deconstructed hero comics in the vein of The Boys and Mark Millar’s Wanted (the comic, not the movie). What sets this apart is its focus on constructed villains told from the least likely POV, that of a seemingly cowardly henchman. I say seemingly because the character Dade is layered and complex, which is essential in a world where supporting characters could easily overshadow the lead.

What breaks the mold from Garth Ennis’s The Boys is that the heroes here are actually painted as heroes, not power-hungry psychopaths. This creates an interesting dynamic where we’re following the “bad guys” who might be the bad guys after all.

The worldbuilding deserves special mention. You can see extensive work went into crafting the settings and social structure. The world feels both believable within its own rules and distinctly different from our reality, creating that sweet spot where readers can invest in the fantasy while understanding the stakes.

Story

The story follows Dade, a standard security guard for a villainous corporation who’s clearly fallen down the villain corporate ladder. We’re dropped into a world where villain corps, vampires, and werewolves are just part of the everyday landscape, and rival corporations are engaged in what amounts to corporate warfare with actual casualties.

The series introduces an almost overwhelming number of characters, but smartly provides helpful title cards with names and occupations. These become invaluable when characters reference people off-panel, trust me, you’ll be flipping back to check who’s who. This shows the intricate tapestry of worldbuilding being thrown at you. It all makes sense within the story’s logic, but there’s definitely a lot to digest.

Tonally, the series blends dark humor with grounded storytelling, featuring gratuitous violence including visceral gunshot wounds, stabbings, and dismemberment. There’s an inconsistency issue with profanity that bothered me: the first book drops F-bombs freely, as you’d expect from characters in this world, but then all profanity gets censored starting with book two. For a series with this much violence and mature themes, the sudden shift to censored language felt thematically jarring and took me out of the story.

Characters

The character design across Who’s Bad is solid, with each person feeling like they have genuine history and forward momentum in the story. Dade starts strong as a likeable underdog with hints of a mysterious past that kept me invested in his journey.

But here’s where the series stumbles for me: starting in book two, the narrative focus shifts to new characters in a way that felt abrupt and ultimately undermining. We get deep into a new character’s head, hearing their thoughts, experiencing their fears, which naturally makes them feel like the new protagonist. Then Dade shows up halfway through, but now he feels like a supporting character in his own story.

This head-hopping continues in book three, and by then Dade, the character I’m most invested in, feels relegated to the bench. It’s frustrating because the new character introductions are well-written with distinct voices, but I found myself wanting to stay with the original protagonist who hooked me in the first place. The series might have been stronger keeping Dade as the consistent POV character or at least splitting the focus more evenly from the start.

Art

The artwork throughout the series is genuinely impressive, on par with what you’d expect from Marvel or DC. Each artist brings strong technical skills, and the overall quality never drops across the three books.

That said, the series faces the classic indie comic challenge: maintaining visual consistency with rotating artists. It’s not necessarily a weakness here since each artist delivers quality work, but character designs do shift slightly between books.

This is where those handy name plates become essential, you’ll find yourself double-checking to confirm character identities when the art style changes.

The line work, paneling, and color work across all three books are standout elements. The artists clearly understand how to guide the reader’s eye and create dynamic action sequences that serve the story’s violent, kinetic energy.

Lettering

The lettering work deserves recognition for handling a challenging job. The series is dialogue-heavy with complex world-building exposition, character introductions, and frequent cross-talk between multiple speakers in single panels. The letterers manage this density well, using creative balloon placement (the tails that connect speech bubbles to speakers) to keep conversations clear even when panels get crowded.

The abundance of text-heavy caption boxes shows how much story the creative team wanted to pack in. While the lettering handles this admirably, the series might have benefited from additional pages to let some of the exposition breathe rather than cramming so much information into limited space.

Final Thoughts

The Who’s Bad series starts with genuine strength in book one, which remains the best-paced and structured of the three. That first issue does the heavy lifting of world-building while establishing Dade as a protagonist with clear wants and motivations driving the narrative forward.

The series loses some steam in book two when the narrative focus fragments. By shifting away from Dade’s perspective, the story loses the character investment that made the first book compelling. The later books feel dense with information and could have benefited from spreading their content across more issues to improve pacing and allow for better character development.

Interestingly, the world-building is strong enough that this story could work within established universes like Marvel or DC, where readers wouldn’t need to process entirely new factions and power structures. The creators have built something with real potential, it just needs tighter focus on its central character.

The series shows promise and demonstrates solid comic book craftsmanship across all creative disciplines. With some adjustments to narrative structure and pacing, this could develop into something really special.

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