Jim Hardison

What if you had a magical superpower and it hated your guts? Matt Blurdy's day has gone from crap to worse. Not only did his girlfriend break his heart at work--and in front of all of the video-store patrons--but he just got fired. All that's left to do is minibike his sorry, thirty-year-old (and freshly unemployed!) butt back home to his mom's basement and drown his sorrows in a bucket of extra crispy chicken while contemplating where his life went wrong. On the way home, Matt decides to quiet his aching heart with a brief detour to a garage sale. When an ancient-looking helmet calls to him as "the Chosen One," exhorting him to don the mantle of the "Valhalladrim," Matt touches it with trembling fingers--and is jolted by raw magical power. Holy crap! Is he going to be a superhero? Is this why he always felt special even when everyone else thought he was a loser? Then the helm gets a sense of whom it's dealing with. Suddenly, it changes its tune: "I was mistaken. You are not the chosen one. Good day." But for once in his life, Matt's not taking no for an answer. Not today.

The Helm, an enchanted artifact of countless legendary heroes, has learned that its latest Chosen One is a chubby, unemployed fantasy addict . . . who lives in his mother's basement. Defying all odds, however, Matt Blurdy managed both to defeat a bloodthirsty hobgoblin and thwart the Helm's scheme to have him killed. Now the hero's training begins in earnest: workouts, retrieval of a magic flaming sword, battles with wraiths, and a showdown with a sorcerer in mortal combat. But when the media starts reporting Matt's victories as murders, an old flame reenters the picture, and true darkness looms on the horizon, even a replica Highlander trench coat might not be enough to save Matt's hide!

Has Matt Blurdy's luck run out? His emergence as the new Valhalladrim has enraged the dark force responsible for keeping the Helm dormant for nearly a hundred years. This tremendous evil has sent a powerful necromancer-a familiar face!-to bend the previous Valhalladrim's ghost to his will and reveal Matt's location. As if that's not enough to worry about, Matt's on-again girlfriend, Jill, discovers his connection to recently reported murders and thinks he's gone crazy. This Chosen One stuff is a lot more complicated than it's cracked up to be, and fate is closing in . . .

There's been some good news and bad news for Matt Blurdy. First off, he slew the necromancer out to kill him-good news! But then it turned out that this dark wizard was none other than Damien, Matt's heinous ex-boss . . . totally weird news. And then Jill discovered the sword in Matt's closet, put two and two together, and freaked the hell out-bad, bad news! Trouble is, she could be right . . . either the world is actually in peril and the worst evil yet is closing in, or someone and his talking helmet need to be committed. Is Matt truly the Chosen One, or has he gone completely off his nut? Only one thing's for certain, people: it's time to roll perfect 20s.

Matt Blurdy's day has gone from crap to worse. Not only did his girlfriend break his heart at work -- and in front of all of the video-store patrons -- but he just got fired. All that's left to do is minibike his sorry, thirty-year-old (and freshly unemployed!) butt back home to his mom's basement and drown his sorrows in a bucket of extra-crispy chicken while contemplating where his life went wrong. On the way home, Matt decides to quiet his aching heart with a brief detour to a garage sale. When an ancient-looking helmet calls to him as "the Chosen One," exhorting him to don the mantle of the "Valhalladrim," Matt touches it with trembling fingers -- and is jolted by raw magical power. Holy crap! Is he going to be a superhero? Is this why he always felt special even when everyone else thought he was a loser? Then the helm gets a sense of whom it's dealing with. Suddenly, it changes its tune: "I was mistaken. You are not the chosen one. Good day." * Collects the four-issue miniseries.