Last week, the Superwoman Special came out, and it was so blah I decided to skip it. It wasn’t horrible, it was just, basically, a recap of how Lois is now Superwoman. It was fine, I suppose, but not worthy of a post, and with the blog acting so weird (why, dear God, why?!?!?!?), I made the executive decision to skip it. Oh well. But we’re back now, with new ALL IN titles! Let’s gooooooooooooo!
Challengers of the Unknown #1 (“The Secret Life of Ace Morgan”) by Christopher Cantwell, Sean Izaakse, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. $3.99, 21 pgs.
As we’ve seen during this ALL IN thing, the Challengers are hanging out on the Justice League Big-Ass Satellite, so they get to have their own story told, as well, while they’re sitting around doing nothing or, in Rocky’s case, cleaning out septic tanks (poor Rocky!). You may also recall that they featured a bit prominently in The Question #1, but something in that book gets spoiled in this book, which is odd. It doesn’t really have an impact on this book, but it’s still odd. ANYway, in this issue, Mr. Terrific gets to the point of what’s been hinted at in, say, The Question and in some of the other ALL IN books: when Darkseid disappeared, something weird happened in the solar system, and they need the Challengers to investigate several “high-priority anomalies,” so he splits them up, sends a superhero with them, and Bob’s Your Uncle! (Well, except for Rocky, who gets left behind because those septic tanks aren’t going to clean themselves … poor Rocky!) In this issue, Ace heads off to Mars with Superman (wearing those funky purple threads on the cover) to check out one of the anomalies, and something happens to him (Ace, that is) that messes with his head. It’s sort of a “It’s a Wonderful Life” kind of thing, but Ace doesn’t want to tell Mr. Terrific about it when he gets back to the JLB-AS, and it seems clear that Mr. T is hiding stuff from the Challengers as well. Good to see the “heroes” getting along! I mean, sure, Mr. T has his reasons, but at this point in his life, he should know that hiding information from other heroes never fucking ends well. Come on, Mike!
It’s a good, intriguing beginning to the series. Sure, the fact we’re retconning in an “Ace should have been Green Lantern, not Hal” plot point feels a bit … dumb (I tried to come up with a better word, but I didn’t have my thesaurus handy and “dumb” pretty much covers it!), but it’s not the worst thing in the world. Cantwell, who can be a good writer, does nice work showing how smart Ace really is, and I really like the little bit of page time Rocky gets, because it’s such a realistic kind of thing, Cantwell doesn’t oversell it too much, and it’s obviously leading to either Rocky proving that he’s just as valuable to the team as the Big Brains OR that’s going to break bad in a serious way, either of which plot could be interesting.
I dig Izaakse’s “Jim Cheung-lite” art, too – it works nicely for a straight-forward, meat-and-potatoes superhero-esque story (the Challengers aren’t superheroes, per se, but they’re superhero-adjacent). He does a good job with Ace’s “What-if” scenario, moving effortlessly from action (there’s a nice panel where Ace is punched through part of a sound effect) to horror, and he makes Mr. Terrific both heroic and slightly sinister, which works in the context of the issue. Getting back to poor Rocky, he nails both times Rocky taks about the septic tanks. The dude really is not having a good time! He also does a nice two-panel sequence with Superman using his heat vision that both implies something weird is going on with the Man of Steel and then humanizes him a bit, as he’s concentrating so much and does something we all do when we’re concentrating! Little things like this make the book work better, because Izaakse makes the people less superhuman and a bit more relatable, so Cantwell’s sinister-ish plot works a bit better.
So, it’s a pretty keen issue. Dare you challenge yourself to go ALL IN with Challengers of the Unknown????
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆
One totally Airwolf panel:
The New Gods #1 (“The Old Gods Died … And The New Gods Were Born”) by Ram V, Evan Cagle, Jorge Fornés, Francesco Segala, and Tom Napolitano. $3.99, 20 pgs.
Ram V is currently one of my favorite writers, so I’ve been looking forward to this, and it does not disappoint. There’s an odd 4-page sequence (drawn by Fornés) at the beginning in which Metron gets zapped at the Source by some form of energy, and then we get to the main issue, which Cagle draws. It’s basically a set-up issue – Highfather is disturbed that Darkseid is gone, because (as usual), these evil dudes provide “balance” and now real evil things are coming out of the woodwork (I never understood this thinking, as a universe without Darkseid would seem to be a good thing, but comic book writers love it because the IP is going to be there anyway, so they might as well justify it). On Earth, he claims, there’s a child who’s going to “awaken” and become a new god, but he doesn’t know if this is a good thing or not. He gets Orion to head off to Earth, where we find Scott Free and Barda raising their baby. It’s the tiniest bit of an annoying scene, as Venkatesan leans into the clichés of the “new dad who doesn’t know what he’s doing” in just seven panels, and as a dad, it seems … mean? I mean, it’s 2024, people – dads are as good at changing diapers as moms are these days! (Also, girls do not pee that way, so Scott is just extra-sloppy, I guess, but good for DC for showing urine in one of their non-Black Label comic!) Anyway, Scott meets with Orion and finds out that Highfather wants Orion to actually kill the new god child and Orion wants Scott to stop him. It’s a nice conversation, actually, which is one reason why I like Ram V so much – he does very good character work, and he does a good job with these two characters who know each other so well. We shift to India, where bad dudes are hunting a family – including a kid! – and before they can kill the parents and take the kid, the kid turns into a new god. Of course. They’re hunting him for Maxwell Lord, which … yuck. I don’t know what Lord’s status is in this Brave New DC World, but I really don’t like Super-Evil Maxwell Lord. It just doesn’t seem to fit his original characterization, and I just wish DC would invent some other evil billionaire to use – they could call him, I don’t know, Elonn Misk or something – and leave poor Maxwell Lord alone. Anyway, the kid becomes a god, and bad things are going to happen to the dudes hunting him, and Orion will show up, and presumably Scott Free will too. Although, it would kind of be neat if Scott didn’t show up, because, as he points out, being a parent takes up a lot of your fucking time. Either way, this is a pretty keen opening issue. Apparently it’s not that hard to do!
Cagle does really nice work with the art, too. He kind of has a thin-line Larry Stroman thing going on, which I dig but which, I guess, some people will not. His lithe, thin lines work better on some characters than others – his Metron is terrific, while his Orion is a bit less so – but overall, he does a nice job, and the final page is very keen … actually, the first page he draws (page 5) is very keen, too, so he begins and ends the issue on high notes. That’s always nifty!
This is a very cool comic, and I’m glad it is, because it’s always nice when something you’re looking forward to lives up to the expectations. Granted, it’s only one issue, but I do have confidence in Venkatesan given his track record. This is one new DC book I have no problem going ALL IN with!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆
One totally Airwolf panel:
I apologize for this being late, but the blog was acting wonky again, and none of us know how to stop it acting wonky, so we just have to wait until it’s not. I hope everyone is having a good week celebrating what you celebrate!
I’m in for both of these titles, they were really enjoyable. I have hopes for Metamorpho next week
Yeah, Metamorpho looks fun!
The New Gods are very precious to me, and basically nobody post-Kirby has gotten them “right” except Simonson and most recently Ngozi Ukazu in her Barda graphic novel.
So far so good here, though. Has that sort of modern pretentious Hickman-y vibe, but Ram V does well with the voices of the characters. Really dug the scene between Scott and Orion. I wonder if we’re heading to some kind of new The Pact situation with the new new god and Scott’s baby?
Cagle’s art is also really tremendous. He seems to combine the 90s extreme excess era with like the Moebius Euro-style? I’m digging it.
I’ll wait for the trade from here on out, but– I have high hopes now.
The Barda graphic novel was indeed delightful. Given I have the same disdain for most New Gods stuff as you do, it was a pleasant surprise.