Review - Reset #1

Ever get to a point in your life where you wonder if you made the right decisions? Maybe you should have talked to someone you didn't? Act a different way? Change your whole perspective? These are all thoughts that run through our minds at one point or another, only there's really nothing you can do about them. Or is there?

Peter Bagge's Reset #1 looks at those questions and more. The slightly off-kilter four-part series from Dark Horse ponders a life with a reset button.

Washed-up actor Guy Krause is facing a tough life. His glory years of fame and fortune are behind him, replaced by mandatory drunk driving classes and single gag jokes on sitcoms that don't quite pan out. In a nutshell, he's burned a lot of bridges on his way to the top and is now coming back down to Earth.

In desperate need of money, Guy decides to partake in a strange psychological study that uses virtual reality to allow him to relive certain moments in his life. The end game is that if Guy can go back to a certain point and act differently it may have a profound effect on his current life and decisions. If he screws up the virtual reality past, he can just hit reset.

Bagge's story is something everyone has contemplated at one point or another. Some of us even save obsessively when playing certain games, knowing that if we screw up we can just reset (reload a previous save). It's sort of a safety net to life and Bagge presents it in a brash and comedic way. Bagge has created a fairly stereotypical yet deep character in Guy, who hides behind humor to get through just about any situation.

The art by Bagge lightens the mood just a bit. Reset #1 could just as easily be a depressing look at how we regret certain decisions, but Bagge's art doesn't allow that to happen. It infuses the story with a shot of levity, which doesn't allow the reader to be bogged down by morality. Instead, the illustrations are caricatures of emotions and complement the story well.

Reset #1 is an interesting story from an interesting creator. The full motive behind using Guy for the initial run is a little unclear, which works out well becuase it adds a dimension of curiosity to the next issue. Whether or not Guy really changes will also be up for debate, but at the very least the first issue will have you wondering about resetting certain moments of your own life.

Reset #1 should be in stores now.