White Savior #1 Review: Stylistic Art Triumphs Despite Stale, Sophomoric Humor

Immediately, even before you see the first panel of the series, White Savior is making itself clear to you as a reader where it's headed. This satirical take on the titular storytelling trope seeks to not only tear down the myth of the White Savior as a device, but also interrogate its place in stories. Eric Nguyen is both the seris' artist and co-writer alongside Scott Burman, delivering a comic that feels like it was born out of afternoons with Toonami and late nights watching Adult Swim. White Savior not only marries the distinct storytelling of Japanese samurai stories, and naturally the experience of Asian-Americans and their relation to such things, but also swirls in some sophomoric humor, sometimes to its detriment.  

Todd Parker is the lead of the series, a young Asian-American man who lives with his parents and grandpa in the city. A film history professor at a community college, White Savior is quick to tell us important facts about our lead, albeit clumsily. Not only is Todd disconnected from his familial history, but he's stuck in a state of arrested development as a person. Through circumstances that are not fully explained, Todd stumbles through a portal in time, landing back in Feudal Japan at a point where a distinct person he's heard tell of is also present. If you think that person is the white savior, you'd be right. 

There's a distinct difference in Nguyen's artwork, and even the coloring done by Iwan Joko Triyono, across the two timelines in which this comic is set. The sequences in feudal Japan have harder lines across the characters and the environments, with wild expressions and deranged action ever present. At times these scenes feel like they're changing the visual language of a Jim Mahfood comic, something it achieves in some panels, but which isn't constantly there. However, when the present day scenes are viewed alongside these, the snap and pizazz that these sequences have is mostly gone, and in their absence we're given stilted artwork that sometimes simply isn't as interesting to look at.

Letterer Micah Myers also shows their skills throughout, adapting to the various moments in the story where the tone and setting changes with a lettering style that can match. The scenes set in the present day fit a modern comic book narrative framework for the letters, while the sequences in the past have an appropriately stylized look to the letters as well.

As far as the characterizations within the story this first issue is off to a rocky start. Naturally with a plot as dense to explain as this there's a lot of set up that needs to occur, but Todd's traits as the lead character are handled like a typing a sentence on a keyboard with a hammer. This isn't to say that the motivations and elements of this character aren't clear, they're just overdone like a burnt steak. 

There's also the matter of the style of humor that the lead character possesses. A thorough angle of meta-awareness is perhaps the best element of the comedy that comes through, and in fact seems necessary given the subject matter, but other attempts at jokes and gags fall flat and seem to trying too hard for the joke. 

White Savior is clearly establishing itself to be something interesting but its first issue spends most of its real estate explaining its lead character and his attitude in a clumsy fashion. The unique plot that Todd Parker finds himself in seems like one that could be fun in the long run of the series, perhaps if the humor can find a balancing act between crude and clever. For now though the first issue is notable for its unique visual style. Sadly this core tenet of the comic isn't throughout, but should be a staple of its look for the foreseeable future. There's promise here, hopefully White Savior can find that in itself too.

Published by Dark Horse Comics

On January 18, 2023

Written by Eric Nguyen and Scott Burman

Art by Eric Nguyen

Colors by Iwan Joko Triyono

Letters by Micah Myers

Cover by Eric Nguyen