Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? is an upcoming 50-page one-shot from Accent UK. The comic is written by Dave West, with art by Marleen Lowe, and is set to be the first title of the publishers Blessed/Cursed Imprint. Accent UK is a United Kingdom based Indy comics publisher, who I recently profiled in a Small Press Spotlight article. I also recently reviewed their Western anthology book, so be sure to also check that out!

Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? begins with a terrorist threat in the heart of London. The narrator tells us that such threats are far more common that we would believe. The government mostly handles these events quickly and quietly, leaving the public none the wiser. The latest threat comes from an “evil scientist” who has armed  a large incendiary device, which he has planted deep within the bowels of the Prometheus Building. An impressive rocket-shaped building in central London, The Prometheus building is home to Prometheus Inc, and houses many of Britain’s brightest scientific minds. The government has tried all of it’s normal tricks to solve the problem, but the terrorist won’t accept a ransom, the police and special forces can’t track him down to force him to disable the device, and teams of the city’s best bomb disposal experts are at a loss. With no other recourse, the government is forced to make an announcement about the situation. They tell the public to stay inside and avoid the streets, which inevitably leads to pandemonium, as people attempt to flee the city.

It’s an unresolvable situation, with the lives of thousands in the balance…

… enter Bobby Doyle, a mild mannered office worker who is out on a ‘long lunch’ at the pub with some friends when the news is announced on the bar TV. Bobby takes in the tragic news, and “with a sigh he puts his half empty pint glass on its beer mat, and stopped time”. You see, Bobby is not like normal people, for some reason he has the ability to stop time for everyone else, whilst still being able to move around in his own time pocket. This rare talent has come in rather useful at many points of Bobby’s life, for example, when he has needed to get some extra sleep in between a hard night’s drinking and an important exam. As you can tell, Bobby isn’t really a born superhero. Sure, he was born with the talent, but not really with the desire. However, there have been times when he has had to use this gift for good. The most recent example that Bobby can remember is when he was in a train accident. The commuter rain he was traveling on began to derail, so Bobby once again stopped time, and carried every occupant of the train, and the surrounding houses a safe distance from the crash site. No one was hurt that day, but many people reported seeing brief glimpses of a man opening doors, and lifting people out of their seats. These reports gave birth to the urban legend of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’.

Far from the world’s fastest man, Bobby is 25 years old, average fitness, and wants to accomplish nothing more than lead a standard middle-class life. It is with great reservation then that Bobby stops time and makes his way to the Prometheus building, to assess this terrible public threat. What he finds at the scene is a ginormous bomb that looks as if it is a prop from a 1950s sci-fi movie. Scientists, bomb-disposal technicians, police, and the military are all present at the scene, frozen in time as they examine a large map of London. Bobby soon determines that they have long ago ceased attempting to disarm the bomb, and now with only 59 minutes and 23 seconds till detonation they are assessing the hopeless task of clearing out the blast zone. They have determined the blast zone to be a two mile radius of the Prometheus building, covering an area of 12.6 square miles. Thousands of people live is this area, and to even attempt to evacuate them in less than an hour would be a futile task. But not for Bobby, to Bobby 58 minutes and 23 seconds is almost an eternity. So, he does the only thing that a man in his position can do, and begins carrying people outside of the 2 mile radius of the explosion.

Bobby faces several challenges along the way, the biggest of which is that whilst he can move about freely in his own time zone, to open doors, or move things he has to kick back into normal time for a fraction of a second. Therefore, Bobby cannot use any form of transportation to move the people to safety, but must physically carry each and every living being to safety using only his own strength. Every time Bobby lifts a person up it steals a second from the clock, meaning that he can only possibly do this 3563 times before the bomb goes off for him too. This doesn’t worry his so much though, but what worries is more is that while time has stopped for everyone else, it still moves for him i.e. he ages! What we get to watch over the rest of the book is Bobby saving the lives of thousands of people in the slowest way possible, whilst he ages from a fresh faced 25 year old to a bald and bearded old man. We see him deciding the logistics of the best way to clear the blast zone, and who he should save first, in case his ailing body won’t allow him to carry certain people in 50 years time. We watch as he begins talking to himself, when there is no one left to talk to, because he is alone even when surrounded by herds of people. Then, when time has nearly run out, and Bobby is an old man, he finds the man responsible for this terrible crime, and has to decide his fate…

Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? is an incredibly interesting and original take on the old adage that “with great power, comes great responsibility.” It’s an incredibly honest look at what would happen if an ordinary man was gifted with extraordinary powers. It is unlikely that most individuals would don a garish costume, and run around saving lives, not unless they were mentally unstable, or were in constant need of the fame and adoration. In this story Bobby is just trying to lead a normal life, but when his powers are truly needed and there is no way around it, he pulls his sleeves up, and gets on with the job. This is a very British take on the superhero myth. The British, whilst performing wonderful work on the U.S. superhero scene, have had very few home-grown superheroes, and when we do create them we tend to make them incredibly flawed beings with very human sensibilities. Whilst an American superhero might dress up with his underwear outside of his trousers and run around saving screaming dames, you’d never catch a proper British hero doing that.

Dave West does a wonderful job on the story front, with the storytelling method falling somewhere between a regular comic, and a short story. What I mean by this, is that by the inherent nature of the plot this is a very lonely story, which mostly  precludes the need for dialogue, or speech bubbles of any sort. Most of the story is told though interiour monologue, character introspection, and a little bit of exposition. Exposition has become a bit of a dirty word in modern comics, but when used properly, as it is here, it can be a very valuable story telling device.

The art on the book is by Marlene Lowe, and is incredibly gorgeous. The book has a full colour cover, but all of the interiour artwork is in black & white.  There are many parts of the book where difference between static time and moving time needs to be illustrated, and Lowe manages to to indicate the flow of time incredibly well through some very subtle techniques. Namely, when time is static for a character, place, or object the artwork is penciled and shaded, but not inked; when time is flowing, as it always is for Bobby, then the art is inked, and coloured in grayscale. This leads to a truly wonderful effect, as illustrated below. Like I said, it’s a really subtle technique, but it is incredibly powerful!

Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? is an amazing piece of character work, that takes a very real-life approach to the modern superhero myth. Bobby Doyle is an average working class schmo, who just happens to be able to stop time. When faced with no other alternative he keeps a stiff upper lip, and goes about saving the lives of thousands, in the most mundane of fashions. Though he is reluctant to do so, he sacrifices day after day of his ever depleting life in order to save the lives of strangers. The title of the story may bring to mind classic Alan Moore penned Superman tale Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? which isn’t a bad association to make, but this story is rather different from Moore’s classic Superman epitaph. Instead, it brought to mind an Alan Moore interview that I remember from several years ago (conducted by Stewart Lee, I think) where Moore was making fun of the Batman origin. He was highlighting how ridiculous even Batman’s dark origin was, by quoting part of the comic where after Bruce Wayne has witnesses the brutal murder of his parents he says, and I’m paraphrasing, “Now I shall dress as a bat and fight crime!” I think Bobby Doyle’s response to having special powers is a little more realistic, don’t you?

Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man? will be available in the UK shortly, so keep checking http://www.accentukcomics.com for news on the release date. Accent UK are also hoping to get this one-shot picked up by Diamond Distribution for a North American release, so keep an eye on Previews magazine for that, and I am sure I will highlight it and inform people when it does appear!

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