DC Comics 2021
Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Xermanico
Coloured by Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Lettered by Tom Napolitano
When our heroes saved the Muliverse from Perpetua in Dark Nights: Death Metal, everything was put back where it belonged...and we do mean everything. All the damage from all the Crises was undone, and heroes long thought gone returned from whatever exile they had been in. Most of them, at least. Alan Scott, the Green Lantern from the Justice Society of America, has noticed some of his allies are still missing in action, and he’s determined to find them. There are others, though, who would rather remain hidden than explain themselves, like Roy Harper, a.k.a. Arsenal, a man who should be dead but now is not. Plus, what does all this mean for the DCU’s place in the Multiverse? On opposite sides of a dimensional divide, both Barry Allen and President Superman ponder this question. Not to mention the Darkseid of it all! Or a team of Multiversal heroes called Justice Incarnate!
There are a few points that are made right off the bat that really struck a chord with me, chief among them is that Alan Scott and his kids are back and he’s already running off to join a inter-multiverse team so he can once again avoid spending time with them. Also on a side note whatever happened to Molly, ya know his wife?
I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is solidly presented. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter keeps the characters familiar yet fresh at the same time. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the vignettes and setting up where the story is going.
How we see this structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow is rather well executed. The bits of characterisation, the different cliffhanger style moments they all work to add depth and complexity to the story and raise the intrigue and interest factors exponentially. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.
I am a huge fan of the interior artwork here. The linework is incredible and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to bring out this level & quality in the detail work is bloody gorgeous. That we see this prolific use of backgrounds makes me incredibly happy and not only do they set the stage & enhance the moments they work within the composition of the panels to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a brilliant eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered as well. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work really is laid down expertly. The techniques we see is fantastic and overall just the way they enhance the linework shows us how colour can and should work.
There are a lot of introductions here that don’t always segue into the next very well but with this large a cast to introduce I guess that’s to be expected. Trying to cram this into six issues means we’ll see this now and then but I hope the reception to this is strong because the idea is solid and I’d personally love to see an ongoing monthly or even better a series of limited series featuring cases as arcs. This way we can see the layers run through from the first to the current to the future. I do have to wonder where Rip Hunter and Waverider and the others are as they’re supposed to protect the time stream.
Joshua is an amazing writer and this is off to a great start and it sinks its teeth into you so that you want to see what’s going to happen next. This is a grand idea and it’s being seen magnificently and with this level of artwork you are definitely in for a treat.