The Adequates #3 Review: Superheroes… Well, Sort Of
The Adequates #3 turns a bad graveyard ritual into a sharp, funny, supernatural superhero mess with heart, monsters, and misfit energy
The Adequates #3 continues to prove that not every superhero story needs polished icons, perfect teams, or billion-dollar confidence. Sometimes the best heroes are the ones who barely understand what is happening, accidentally wake up the wrong supernatural force, and still try to fix the mess anyway.
Co-written by Lee Loughridge and Marz Jr., with art by Marz Jr., this issue leans hard into what makes The Adequates work: awkward young characters, offbeat horror comedy, and superhero chaos that feels intentionally messy in the best possible way.
The issue opens with a confession: the kids did something very bad while attempting a ritual tied to Johnny Mercer. What begins as a spooky supernatural setup quickly becomes something much bigger, as the story reveals that it was not Mercer’s soul that woke up, but something connected to Void, the dead, and the strange abilities now affecting the group. The review copy shows the issue using the graveyard sequence, the spell book, and the kids’ accidental powers as the launch point for the chapter’s central mystery.
A Stronger, Weirder Chapter for The Adequates
The premise is simple in the best way: The Elites have declared war on The Adequates, and the misfits are starting to change. But those changes are not clean superhero upgrades. They are strange, confusing, half-functional, and deeply inconvenient.
That is where the issue finds its voice.
Instead of treating powers like a clean origin-story victory lap, The Adequates #3 makes the abilities feel like a problem the characters have to survive. The team is not standing around posing like legends. They are confused, scared, and trying to understand whether their new gifts are connected to a monster that may now be hiding inside one of them.
That gives the issue a fun hook: this is a superhero comic where the “cool power reveal” is also a possible horror diagnosis.
The Comedy Lands Because the Danger Still Matters
One of the best parts of this issue is how well it balances comedy with real stakes.
The characters argue, panic, question everything, and make terrible plans. There is a great running energy to the dialogue where every explanation seems to create three more problems. A spell worked, but not the way anyone wanted it to. Powers appeared, but maybe not safely. The monster might still be loose, or worse, it might be inside one of them.
That nervous, fast-moving rhythm keeps the issue from feeling like a standard team book. The kids are not trained heroes. They are barely holding it together.
The sequence involving bugs is a perfect example. What could have been a straightforward power test becomes awkward, gross, and funny, especially because the character involved absolutely does not want that specific gift. It is superhero discovery filtered through embarrassment instead of triumph.
Marz Jr.’s Art Gives the Book Its Personality
Marz Jr.’s art is a major reason the book works.
The character designs are exaggerated without losing expression. Everyone has a readable silhouette, and the visual humor comes through clearly in the faces, posture, and reactions. The issue moves easily from spooky graveyard atmosphere to school-age panic to action-comedy chaos.
The book also has a strong color identity. The graveyard pages carry a cool, eerie tone, while later scenes shift into sickly greens, pinks, yellows, and sudden bursts of visual energy. That helps the issue feel supernatural without becoming too grim.
The best visual moments are the ones where the book lets the absurdity breathe: the spell book, the monster detector, the bug swarm, and the sudden escalation at the end. It all feels handmade, strange, and alive.
The Adequates #3 Review Verdict
The Adequates #3 is a fun, weird, and confidently offbeat superhero comic. It understands that misfit characters are more interesting when their powers create new problems instead of solving old ones.
The issue works because it refuses to make the team too competent too quickly. The kids are scared. They are confused. They are not sure who to trust. They might be connected to something supernatural and dangerous. Yet underneath the chaos, there is still a real sense of forward momentum.
The result is a comic that feels like superhero horror-comedy with a garage-band attitude. It is messy in the right places, funny without undercutting the stakes, and weird enough to stand apart from cleaner, safer cape books.
For readers looking for indie superhero comics with personality, supernatural flavor, and a misfit cast that is still figuring itself out, The Adequates #3 is worth checking out.
Final Score
8/10
The Adequates #3 is funny, strange, and energetic, with enough monster mystery and awkward power discovery to keep the series moving in a strong direction.
Why You Should Read It
Read The Adequates #3 if you like superhero comics that are more interested in weird characters than perfect icons. This issue has magic gone wrong, powers nobody fully understands, a possible monster problem, and a team that feels dangerously underprepared for everything coming at them.
It is a strong pick for readers who enjoy indie superhero stories, horror-comedy, oddball team books, and comics that take the idea of “superheroes… well, sort of” seriously.
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Join the Discussion
Are you reading The Adequates, and which misfit power would you absolutely not want to end up with?
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