Superheroes return to their roots with "himbo bodybuilders" Beef Bros

Beef Bros.
(Image credit: Tyrell Cannon/Fico Ossio/Taylor Esposito)

Superheroes have come a long way from being champions fighting for the working class like they were in the '30s and '40s, but they're coming back to that - with a couple of "himo bodybuilders" in Beef Bros.

Writer Aubrey Sitterson and artist Tyrell Cannon are mixing throwback superheroes with a side of modern culture with what they call an "aspirational leftist superhero comic."

"Huey and Ajax Beef are a couple of himbo bodybuilder superheroes who live their lives by a pretty simple pair of rules: Things work best when people work together and if you can help someone...you do it!" Sitterson tells Newsarama.

In this upcoming self-published one-shot, the Beef Bros. will fight "sadistic cops, greedy landlords, massive corporations, and even a pair of bootlicking rival superheroes."

Here's a five-page sample of the issue, as well as the cover:

"Beef Bros. takes ideas and values that, for generations, have been positioned as weak or feminine – things like charity, generosity, kindness, and love – and shows them being espoused by two yoked-up paragons of manhood. It's an antidote to toxic masculinity," Sitterson continues. "Beef Bros. is everything you love about superheroes, wrestling, action movies, and beat 'em up video games, but with all of the mean-spirited, hateful politics and ideology stripped away and replaced with something kind, aspirational, and revolutionary."

Sitterson and Cannon are raising funds on Kickstarter now for Beef Bros, with a goal of $15,000.

The 32-page Beef Bros. #1 goes on sale in April 2021.

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Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)