As a mass of contradictions, Max Huffman’s kickstarted, self-published comic Plaguers Int’l is — and here’s me “spoiling” the review early — wildly, perhaps even deliriously, successful. As a self-contained piece of “world-building,” though, it may be even more so.

Described by the cartoonist himself as a “North American manic feel-bad sideways world adventure comic,” that actually makes sense once you read the thing , but fair warning : the real world may not anymore by the time you’re done.

Not that it ever really did, of course, which is why the mish-mash of everything plus the kitchen sink that is this book is such a welcome reprieve from basically any kind of pre-conceived nothing you had about — I dunno, anything at all, really. Bronze Age scripting meets post-modern artistic sensibilities in a super-hero team book that’s less “piss-take” than it is loving homage but still…