“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke.

(First of all, let me start by saying that no, this is not a One-Shot. This is a full volume, but it's not available, at least not on the internet. I had the chance to buy a physical copy in Spanish)

Heroes is a bit of a departure from Inio Asano's regular style. It's definitely as dark and cynical as his previous works, but it's way more sardonically comic than anything I've read from him, while also being pretty cartoonish. Even more so than Dead Dead Demons.
In that vein, I assume this might be one of his most alienating works (or will be when more people get to read it), but the themes he deals with are not new. They're basically the same as in Dead Dead Demons. How people will always unite against a common enemy, often not even stopping for a second to ask themselves if what they're doing is actually right.
After finishing it, all I could think of was that quote by Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Sounds good on paper. Even necessary to know. But Asano knows the hypocrisy in which people can fall, sometimes even unbeknownst to themselves. With this work, is like Asano was asking his audience "What makes you think you have the wisdom to tell Good and Evil apart?"

It starts as this silly story about a bunch of misfit Heroes, fighting against "Darkness". The first half is basically episodic in nature, where they defeat Darkness but it always comes back somehow. At some point, someone says "Even if we defeat darkness, as long as people start taking sides, there will always be someone to hate". And it just goes to show the cynical view Asano has of this era of opinionated people, who never get to any agreements, but somehow always have something to say. The fact that some parts feel like a meme makes this manga feel even more current (just as Dead Dead Demons).

On the whole, it's a pretty bizarre and darkly funny manga that nonetheless manages to tackle heavy and current themes on morality. I kind of wish it was a bit longer, though. And the comedy at the beginning almost makes the darker implications at the end feel too depressing. But I wouldn't have it any other way with Asano.

I'm going to end this review with another quote by Burke, just because I feel it really connects with the themes present in Heroes:

"Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy.[...]. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."