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About Free For All #1
Writer: Patrick Horvath
Artist: Patrick Horvath
Publisher: Oni Press
Release date: March 26th, 2025
Synopsis:
In the future, the World Finance League exists to benefit all, randomly choosing those from among the billionaires and trillionaires of the world and presenting them with a choice: either donate half of their assets to the common good—or defend them in ritual combat.
Reigning champion and real estate magnate Ted Brooks has 22 victories under his belt—defending the wealth he schemed and stabbed to get—when he is forced to face his ex-wife, Luella Dominguez, in a fight to the death. Luella has been training, waiting for this moment. But will she have what it takes to defeat the man who would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep his fortune?
Free For All #1 Review
Before we get into this review it’s important to note that Free For All, while it’s easy to write off as a visceral cyberpunk horror blood sport, is much more than that. It’s a commentary on the increasingly dystopic underpinnings our society faces under the hyper-aggressive moves by capitalist headjob giver fuckwads Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos. The type of CEOs that believe the world wouldn't exist without them or without their innovations.
Set in (probably) a not so distant future, Free For All depicts a world in which the heads of multi-national companies and firms are put into a lottery system where, they either pay up when their name is drawn, or they face off in a gladiatorial blood-sport for spectators all around the world to see.
When a pharmaceutical CEO enters the arena for increasing the price of cancer saving medicine, he faces off against Ted Brooks, a CEO with 22 arena victories under his belt. The pharma CEO is easily dispatched in a grim and grotesque fashion filled with cartoonist-approved gore that would've easily got Oni Press shutdown in Comics Code Authority era.
As the comic book enters a brief respite, Horvath takes us into the history between Ted Brooks and his ex-wife, Luella Dominguez, from their merger as a couple and as a business to Horvath rug pulling her own company from under her, to be the big boss. It's a moment that illustrates the obsession for monetary wealth and the power of control which solidifies Ted as this comic's main villain. A villain which will stop at nothing to be the victor in the next arena bout, even if his next opponent is Dominguez, which is exactly what happens.
While an earlier scene depicts Luella as being trained by an arena master (now contained within the shell of a robot), Ted Brooks prepares by having new mods added to his body. Mods which will catch Luella by surprise later in the comic and expressly demonstrate that Ted will do whatever he can to win. A solution at opposite ends of the spectrum. Even if that means beating his ex-wife to a pulp and taking her life. A metaphor that the accumulation of wealth and manipulation at, no matter the cost, is fine as long as you win. The ends justify the means, in Ted Brooks's world.
Although despite this, the tragedy is that the CEO character, Ted, has zero self-reflection on the "why" he is being forced into an arena to battle to the death - and less about the how to fix a society obsessed with it.
Patrick Horvath's Free For All is incredibly relevant, poignant and is an example on the frustrating times we live in. Where the 3% will run over any competition and will brainwash a society in believing concepts like "the American dream" are there for you but only if you're able to seize it. And if that's a reflection on what the greatest country can be then it's a good thing that dystopic narcissism has resulted in art like this. Because, I'm calling it now, this is the greatest one-shot comic book you'll read all year.
Score: 10/10.