Heroes Against Hunger

   The year was 1986. In the course of the previous 24-months, a group of British Rockers under the name Band Aid released a Christmas record in hopes of raising funds and awareness for famine relief in Africa. Shortly, Hollywood and Motown's hot stars did the same with 'We Are the World.' Then rockers from around the world conducted a series of concerts in both London and New York for the cause. Finally the entire nation got into the act and attempted to raise awareness by symbolically holding 'Hands Across America.'
    In the mid-80s, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a fundraiser for hunger and famine relief in Ethiopia and the surrounding areas of Africa. Everyone wanted to get involved with the project, even those in the comic book industry. In late 1985, Marvel was the first to issue a comic with proceeds going to famine relief. (I'll be reviewing that book in the next couple of days.) But the book that got my interest was DC's version- Heroes Against Hunger.
    I was 8 or 9 when I saw in the back of some long forgotten DC title an advertisement for Heroes Against Hunger. The ad listed over 50 of the industry's best writers, artists, colorists, and editors and on the cover was Superman, Batman, AND Lex Luthor! I was hooked and I never found it!!!
    Let's jump to Winter of last year. At a comic book shop in Asheville, NC I was trolling the bargain bins when I found Heroes Against Hunger and I didn't just find it, I found 24 pristine copies of Heroes! I guess that's where my copy went, it just took me 29 years to get a hold of it.

   So let's look at Heroes Against Hunger...

   Superman is hard at work trying to make the fields of Ethiopia fertile again. But torrential wind storms are making the effort nearly impossible. In disgust, Superman flies off in search of help and comes across Batman. The Dark Knight is investigating the wanton destruction of several Wayne Foundation planes that were carrying relief supplies to aid camp. The World's Finest heroes decide to help the other with Superman investigating the source of the crashes while Batman is tasked with approaching a brilliant scientist who might have formula for making things grow again in Africa: LEX LUTHOR!
    Heroes Against Hunger was an interesting mix of sci-fi and reality. While the fantastic was quite good, the best parts of this book involved the horrors of the famine in Africa. I'm not saying that I reveled in the plight of others. Rather, the parts of this comic that explained the factors behind the famine in Ethiopia as well as the scenes of rage that not only Batman and Superman has against the atrocities experienced by the starving refuges but Luthor as well were superior and very much Worth Consuming.
    
   Oh, one more thing- I didn't really mention much about the writing and the artwork. It's kinda hard to say that one guy was better than another in a work like this. This was a total group effort done by individuals that weren't even in the same state, much less the same room,  with each other. The fact that this got made at all is a little bit of a miracle. 
   While the entire book told a story, it's not 100% cohesive. The writers seem to have different themes that they are trying to put across and some times it seemed like the action got repeated from time to time. Why even Superman looks completely different from page to page as does Batman. It's varying styles and voices and sometimes they don't segue well That's mostly an editing problem. But with superstar talents like Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, George Perez, and many more doing this for free, I can't really find much fault with the errors and nits. So, I'm going to rate this pretty conservatively.

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.