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By Robbie Morrison, Dwayne Turner, Whilce Portacio & Sal Regla (Wildstorm/DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-988-3
The sixth collection of comics’ most “in your face†team of superdoers (it’s becoming increasing difficult to call them ‘heroes’ – which is surely the point) sees them combat the machinations of a televangelist who actually has the power of God (‘Godhead’) and then deals with the aftermath of their taking over the US government (‘Fractured World’). A small bone of contention here is that the events of that regime change are recounted in a whole ‘nother book – Coup D’etat – and if this was disconcerting to an old veteran like me it must be annoying as hell to the casual or new reader.
There are no quibbles with the quality of work. Robbie Morrison has a good handle on all the characters, and if you like seeing the planet decimated every night and twice on Sunday the artists are all capable of depicting it crisply and cleanly, but gosh, every single person on Earth must be hip deep in Prozac to keep going, day in, day out. When you set out to write Realism in superheroes surely the after-effects on the populace must factor in there somewhere?
More to my taste is the smaller story in ‘Street Life’ as Jack Hawkesmoor, patron deity of cities and current President of America investigates the murder of an old girlfriend, which adds more to our understanding of his character than his last fifty appearances combined – and no planets were decimated in the making of this vignette.
All things considered, still a series worth looking at, but the lack of variety is starting to show.
© 2004 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All rights reserved.