Three issues into Worth, the story about a superhero from the 1960s who has become a bitter old man, and we finally know exactly why Grant Worth got the way he is – which is basically like Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino, if Walt could actually talk to the Gran Torino and was completely not racist.
Grant Worth has the power to communicate with machines, which is a power that’s become outmoded with the advent of computers making them too complex for him to deal with. That would be troubling enough in today’s world, but in Worth #3, we learn the tragedy that drove him from just being put out to pasture to actually being a reclusive, angry drunk. It seems his daughter Libby was gifted with his power as well, and she was a bit more adept at it than he was. However, apparently she was driving a new-fangled car with her mind – one with a lot of computers in it like they do these days – and she lost control and couldn’t get it to stop. Grant tried to help over the phone, but he couldn’t do it, either, and he lost his family that horrible day.
Meanwhile, there’s Elliott, the latchkey kid in his Detroit neighborhood who found out who (and what) Grant used to be, and blackmailed his way into getting his help with a robotics project for his school. After a rough start, they actually sorta got along while working it out, and although it got a good grade, the winner was some push-button thing that caused Elliott to overflow with resentment. Seems he and Grant have something in common about the finesse of designs that allow for humans to wield machines rather than having some contraption do all the work for them.
That falls in line with Grant’s radical old hippie friend Eddie Ludlam’s ideology, which involves raging for the machines over the ‘planned obsolescence’ that will inevitably result from the advent of high technology. So the fact that he shows up at the end of the book, after Grant’s alienated Elliott’s friendly mother who was trying to thank him for helping Elliott, likely means there’s something big afoot, because he’s looking very much like some kind of supervillain type. Or just regular villain.
Aubrey Sitterson has done a good job of making us like this cantankerous old crank, and after the revelations here, we completely understand him. The Detroit setting is perfect for this examination of a once-great life gone tragically wrong, yet with some kind of hope still buried down deep. Chris Moreno’s artwork is very expressive and fun, yet doesn’t spare the shadow when the bleakness of Grant’s situation pokes through his grizzled demeanor. Worth is a pretty entertaining read so far, showing us a slice of life from a hero whose time has passed, but who may yet be able to learn a new trick or two.
