Imagine you’re a lifeguard on-duty at your beach in California, flirting with the beach bunnies and generally enjoying the sun, sand and surf. All of the sudden your zapped by some bizarre energy beam from an experiment gone wrong in the middle of the desert over 200 miles away from you. However, instead of being fried to a crisp you’re imbued with freaky superpowers that allow you to move like a beam of light, with only the small problem that because you’re now effectively a walking quartz halogen lamp that your clothes burst into flames when you put them on. (Fortunately, one of your powers is the ability to control how you reflect light so you can make it look like you’re wearing clothes even if you aren’t.)

That’s how the inaugural issue of The Ray from DC Comics starts out.

Fortunately, there’s more to the story than than him trying to figure out his wardrobe problems.

He has a lot of powers related to the properties of light: he can move incredibly fast (one of the panels says he’s actually moving faster than the speed of light), thinks faster and is starting to fight as a superhero. The possibilities his powers offer give a lot of possibilities without getting too ridiculous. Towards the end of the issue Thaddeus Filmore, a dead film maker who had a penchant for making snuff films. Dunh dunh DUNH!

Written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, with pencils by Jamal Igle and inked by Rich Perrotta, the artwork is vibrant and clean without the panels being overloaded with detail like some other comics I’ve looked at. The story is progressing at the right speed – not too rushed and not dragging along.

Verdict based on one issue: I’ll be adding this to my pull list next month.