Surprisingly engaging with very cool art and tons of twists, turns, time jumps and beautifully rendered gore. A few too many artfully rendered limp penises for my liking, but hey, to each their own.

I had a great time reading this graphic novel. Life after death for Bill wasn’t so bad at first. Do strange jobs here and there with a light one day at the end of the tunnel. Once he gets a new partner though this job becomes a nightmare. Bill doesn’t like his new partner one bit, and all they seem to do is make these jobs go sideways. Yet after a mission takes a bad turn, Bill receives a harsh punishment. He gets to talk to the big boss, and learns a shocking secret. As this graphic novel comes to a close, it looks like this job just got much worse.

Unfortunately i didn't like this comic. The story felt messy and it's as if the author tried to cram as many taboo and gross things as he could into this volume. I also wasn't a fan of the artstyle.

I'm becoming a fan of Max Bemis; maybe it's the lyrical way that his comics are presented. I mean this Heavy stuff looks like a better version of Punisher Purgatory. It's one of those things that challenges the whole vigilante archetypes. These characters are driven by their demons and people inspired by them are practically living toxic power fantasies. Sure it's always good to see the worst of bullies get a good hurting after all of the cultural significance but there should always come with introspection.

Bill obviously looks like this but it's only because the reader sees him as the hero for beating down bullies. That doesn't change that he's still just a flawed addict who uses whatever to beat down his helplessness. Fact is it's too easy to paint yourself as the hero. More times you do it expecting something good out of it, the more you realize there's nothing to gain. All it takes is seeing a new perspective can change everything, even a psychopath like Slim. When you're only marginally bound by the rules of reality and see the harm you cause, that's when real change occurs.

I also think Bemis does a lot of personal experiences in his own relationships into Bill. Maybe some bad times with Slim and some happy times with Bill's wife. Some of the relationships on here just feel really personal.

Thanks to the publisher for this eARC!

This graphic novel is not the one for me. I enjoyed the bright illustrations throughout but something just did not click with me in the story. It was super disappointing as I was looking forward to this graphic novel! I’m sure there are many out there who will love it!

Heavy was a radical and wild good time.
While I'm more of a manga reader than a comic reader, the cover for this story really peaked my interest.
I dove in head first with no idea what I was getting myself into.

This story was a wild ride with vibrant colorful page after page. The artwork consists of yellows and pinks and colors you don't normally see in works like this. The colors and artwork of this story are what kept me enthralled when the text became lengthy and wordy at times.
Heavy feels very adult as there's a comical amount of penises slew across panels. I enjoyed the comic very much. There was a Deadpool-like comedic quality to it.

I recommend this to any comic reader who likes wild rides, action, vividly gorgeous artwork and adult dry humor.

A fairly mixed reaction to this adults-only adventure lark. Some bloke with mafia connections is hot for the girl who died in his arms, and so when he dies he ends up in a kind of purgatory, where he's tasked with killing all the baddies in a multiverse full of multiverses, to make existence slightly better and up his kudos enough to join her in heaven. It's a maverick job he's actually pretty good at, and while he talks to his mirror's image of his lass, and to his boss, it's probably for the best he never really has a need to speak to anyone else. This is a loner's job, and a valuable mission for his eternal happiness. Or so he thinks...

This is certainly not an ugly comic, although some of the colouring was a little garish. It's definitely adults-only, with lots of blood and guts, and the Vatican decorated by a humongous marble schlong. Plus, the very young certainly would not understand all the dubious cultural references that get rammed into the script for little reason every few pages. But the biggest problem is that the way the book proceeds shows the author has bitten off a bit more than he can chew – he's trying to provide the drama of our man trying to move on, and give him the greatest antagonist possible for his situation, and give us a drip-drip of the whole, real mythology of the book, AND dribble in the truth of our man's past. All that in a mind-bending, timey-wimey, multiversey, vultimercy way, unfortunately ends up being a little too woolly and incoherent. Certainly the concept behind the story is a fine one, but in expanding the elevator pitch to a full ride had a few too many hiccups.

Not for me. I didn't like the artwork, although I did like the bright colouring. I wasn't a great fan of the story either. Other people might enjoy it. I just didnt gel with this one.

The Big Wait isn't exactly Purgatory, but it's where people who weren't quite good enough for upstairs nor bad enough for below end up – the twist being that they're given jobs to do, rather than just improving suffering. Jobs which relate to their abilities, and thus likely to their sins. Case in point, the Heavies, who are sent on missions to do bad things to bad people across the multiverse. The first obvious question being – if this is a classic multiverse model where every outcome occurs, surely an afterlife working off traditional morality doesn't even make sense? Somewhere out there, everyone does everything they were going to do, so rewarding or punishing any individual iteration is meaningless. Sure, it enables some nice subsidiary ideas – the second lead is a psychopath whose atonement includes killing other versions of himself as a way of both confronting him with the consequences of his actions, and gradually developing some sort of empathy, which doesn't necessarily make 100% sense, but has a certain something. Still, it's sat on a framework which just doesn't bear inspection. If it were being set up as a deliberate contradiction, fine, but that's not really the sense I got while reading it, and there's plenty more like that. Why is this psycho here at all, when he's a clear candidate for damnation if anyone is? How much is he meant to be attractively devil-may-care, and how much genuinely evil? This is all stuff where it's fine for the reader to be unclear, for there to be a tension, a push and pull, as the story goes along. Hell, it can even be a case of the writer not quite knowing themselves and writing the story to work it out. Too often, though, this just felt like it hadn't been properly thought through and/or the editor was too hands-off. Nor did it help that Donovan's art has a certain ugliness to it which, again, is something that can work if it feels intentional, but if not, just comes across as a bit slipshod. I normally like Bemis' comics, and this isn't the first time he's told a tangled tale of complete fuck-ups, but this one feels like it needed another pass to get its point across. In the meantime, it's a bit of a mess.

(Netgalley ARC)

3/5 stars

Before i get into all the nitty gritty, a brief summary would be that this book is GORGEOUS in terms of art, perfect for DC or Marvel fans, and quite honestly captivating.

These words may not seem to correspond with my rating, but i don’t have much to criticise other than the fact that it wasn’t my cup of tea. I oddly enough love to latch onto a character and have them pull me through the novel as i obsess over them, but i couldn’t get myself to do that with this; therefore i assume my main issue lies with the lack of attachment i built for the characters. However, yet again, let me say that this may just be because none of them spoke to me, not because they are poorly written. The plot did have an interesting premise, and i feel like it really sets itself up for the rest of its volumes.

Overall, it really had a unique and honest feel to it, and would be perfect for many comic fans.

( This graphic novel also briefly reminded me of the Saga comics, so I would also recommend reading this if you enjoyed them. )