Midlife (Or How to Hero at 50!) #1: Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

There’s no getting around it: getting older sucks. It may sound like a cliche – especially to those reading this who haven’t even reached thirty yet – but there comes a time when your back hurts, your knees ache, certain anatomy doesn’t work as well any longer, your waistline expands – and so on. But beyond that, hitting midlife is usually cause for reflection, for paths not taken, for trying to seize however many days you have left without having an embarrassing midlife crisis.

All of which brings us to Midlife, Brian Buccellato and Stefano Simeone’s cozy, oftentimes gut-punch of a series that looks at what it’s like for the generation urged to want their MTV – collectively known as Generation X, or, the lost generation – hits their collective midlife crisis. For a generation known for its collective malaise and disenfranchisement, what does middle age become? For firefighter Ruben, it’s become a grind – and a disappointing one, at that, as he mediates on retirement from a job he only took to live up to the memory of his long-deceased hero father. Meanwhile, he has a self-centered college-age son who barely remembers to wish him happy birthday; a daughter who already makes him feel old; a loving wife who keeps trying to help him out of his doldrums despite his best efforts at sabotage; and – plot twist – an even more shocking surprise on the way that sends his entire world further down the spiral.

Oh, and he stumbles onto superpowers by the end of the issue. As one does.

It’s interesting that writer Brian Buccellato chose to even go this route, as, given the copious amount of set-up and lived-in experience he pours lovingly onto each page, the final twist seems almost unnecessary. Future issues will tell the tale for sure, but honestly…? Midlife #1 could have just as easily been about Ruben reclaiming his life without this twist and worked just as well if not better. Only the author knows for sure where all this is going, but given how extraordinarily real Ruben’s life feels, it feels like (for readers of a particular vintage, that is) Midlife promises to be one heckuva heartfelt ride.

Artist Stefano Simeone is a brilliant collaborator. Pencils, inks, and colors all in one package, Simeone breathes a weary humanity into each character, giving them a warmth and realness that belies some of his more slightly cartoonish renderings. It would appear Buccellato and he are in pretty much perfect sync, as there’s nary a false beat throughout the issue. Add lettering superman Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou to the mix, and you have a triple threat of talent with an emotionally honest and resonant debut issue that feels very much like the opposite end of Rick Remender and Wes Craig’s seminal Deadly Class: that book was about being an outsider in the ’80s; this one is about that same generation growing up and wondering if life really did pass by without letting them make much of a mark on the world.