Speed Racer #11: The New Story Arc

Racer X leads a high speed chase in Speed Racer #11’s opening pages. He’s running from the police and finally drives over the side of a bridge in a desperate last bid effort to escape. He survives the fall into the river and, having nowhere else to go, turns to Trixie for help. Trixie gets Racer X medical help and she and Speed finally learn what’s going on: Racer X is wanted for murder.

Speed Racer #11 returns after a four month hiatus. The story feels brand new, not beholden to anything that happened in the first ten issues. Pepose starts the issue off with a classic inciting incident, and it’s off to the races from there. Speed Racer #11 is extremely well paced, with a couple slow moments for readers to catch their breath in an otherwise rush from start to finish.

Speaking of rushing, while racing is a factor in Speed Racer #11, as it is in every issue of Speed Racer, it feels almost secondary here, primarily occurring only in the issue’s final pages. Speed almost serves as a detective here–at least as much as he possibly could be. Racer X delivers an ominous warning that something called “Melange” is coming. He follows this up later by telling Speed to find the Three Roses. This sends Speed to a confrontation with a criminal organization, a fight with the mysterious and powerful Melange, and an investigation into who and what Melange is. This is both an engaging and exciting journey in addition to what every Speed Racer comic needs: a race.

Pepose opens up the Speed Racer world considerably and puts Speed himself even more central to the story. He introduces new villains in the form of the Three Roses and Melange. Pops’ heart health isn’t the story’s driving force. Racer X isn’t available to help at the last minute. Speed Racer #11 preserves the spirit of the series while at the same time making it feel even bigger.

Emotions are running for Speed in Speed Racer #11. Despite driving less in Speed Racer #11 than is typical for an issue in this series, the character’s expressions are as borderline exaggerated as they usually are. Tinto primarily relies on thinner lines around Speed’s and other characters’ eyes and mouths. In extreme outbursts, Tinto adds tiny additional lines to  accentuate facial expressions. Speed’s most extreme outbursts are usually reserved for the most intense moments in the car. Tinto uses the same style for Speed’s expressions during his extended time outside the car. It maintains Speed’s quality as a hothead.

Canola’s coloring adds a lot to Tinto’s depiction of the Speed Racer #11’s characters. The coloring responds very well to implied light sources, and frequently that helps develop shadowed areas on characters’ faces. Canola doesn’t lean into heavy, dark fields of shading for characters’ faces. Instead, Canola just uses darker hues of the same color he uses for flesh tones.

The character design for Melange is unlike anything seen in Speed Racer to this point. As wild as the stories are, Speed is usually facing fully organic characters. Melange is something different entirely. Is he a robot or some kind of cybernetic being? Is he a normal human completely obscured by armor? When Melange says what happened to him in the past, it leaves all possibilities in play. Tinto creates a nice sense of ambiguity to feed into what Melance says he is.

Melange’s dialogue is distinct among the characters for being inside a white bordered bubble with black fill and white letters. Beaudoin ties that design choice into the sound effects generated by Melange’s car. The text for the sound effects is black surrounded by a white outline. This all sets Melange apart as something different in the issue.