Burn the Orphanage #1 Review
“Born to Lose”
Co-writer/artist: Sina Grace
Co-writer: Daniel Freedman
Colorist: John Rauch
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Reviewed by Eric Owens
If you spent the late ’80’s and early ’90’s popping quarters into machines at the arcade or begging your parents to rent another video game from Blockbuster, then Burn the Orphanage is going to hit you with a dragon punch right to the nostalgia. If you didn’t do that stuff, well, you missed out. You can still enjoy this comic, but it’s not going to have the same effect.
In part one of the Born to Lose trilogy, we’re introduced to Rock, who’s out to get revenge on whomever burned down the orphanage he grew up in, leaving him the sole survivor. Joining him in his quest is his childhood friend Bear, who’s a real bear of a man in that he’s large, hirsute, and into other men. Also, he literally has the heart of a bear as the result of an emergency transplant. That’s about as deep as things get in this comic.
Keeping with the strong beat-’em-up influence, the duo punch and kick their way through a bar and street full of punks as they look for answers before finding themselves in stage three, a strip club. They’re confronted by a bevy of topless stripper ninjas, who are, according to Rock, “as deadly as they are sexy.” It’s at this point that the Streets of Rage style group of heroes is complete with the inclusion of Lex. She and Rock love each other, but it’s more of a brother and sister kind of thing.
With that level cleared, they’re directed to the headquarters for the man behind it all, the most powerful man in town—Mr. Mann. While Bear and Lex fight some more goons downstairs, Rock makes his way to the roof to get answers and revenge. After that, Bear and Lex head out with their respective boyfriends and Rock walks into the sunrise with someone we’ll presumably get to know better in Demons, part two of the trilogy.
In case the goofy names and constant shout-out to 8-bit brawlers doesn’t make it clear, you shouldn’t take this comic too seriously. It’s best not to think too much about how Rock pulls off some of his moves or why nobody seems fazed by topless stripper ninjas. Grace and Freedman wear their fondness for the beat-’em-up genre on their sleeveless denim jackets and the nonsensical plot is right in line with any text-heavy cut scene from that era. What plot there is essentially works to give us backgrounds for the main characters or push the story to the next melee. That said, they’re still able to show how much Rock, Bear, and Lex care for one another and the make the reader care about them, too.
Grace mixes up his style a bit throughout the various fight scenes, switching back and forth between panels of normal comic fights and others reminiscent of games like Street Fighter and FInal Fight. Rauch switches to flatter colors for those wide shots, adding to the retro vibe. The action is generally easy to follow, but Lex’s flashback isn’t given the same sepia wash as the other flashbacks, making it somewhat confusing when she’s in a different outfit and not armed with a baseball bat on the next page.
If you know your games, you’ll recognize many homages in the character designs and fighting styles. However, the references extend beyond those brawlers. Lex , for instance, is very much modeled after Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells. At the end of the comic, Lex heads off with a dude who is clearly riding a yellow version of Kaneda’s bike from Akira. Perhaps it’s also a reference to Vanilla Ice and his yellow motorcycle from Cool as Ice, but that might be a stretch.
After the story are a few extra pages about the creative team and a tease for the second story. The page done up like the info pictures on old arcade cabinets is spot on. There’s even a nod to Final Fight’s Mayor Haggar in the diagrams of Rock’s special attacks. Also included is an informative diagram of how to wrap your hands, should you find yourself needing to beat back waves of palette-swapped punks to take back your city or rescue someone close to you.
4/5
Eric is a contributing writer for Drunk On Comics. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricDOwens.