THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD: THE LORDS OF LUCK


By Mark Waid & George Pérez (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-649-8 (trade paperback)

It’s probably just my age but I often think that I might have a few deep-seated problems with most modern comics. I’ve seen the same old plots regurgitated over and over too many times. Maybe the old stuff is only better because I’ve bronzed it uncritically with my personal nostalgias. Nonetheless a large proportion of contemporary product feels shallow, glossy and calculatedly contrived to me.

But then something like this turns up. The trade paperback edition of The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck collects the first six issues of another revival of this venerable DC title and returns it not only to the fitting team-up format we all enjoyed but does it with such style, enthusiasm and outright joy that I’m almost a gawping, drooling nine-year-old again. Mark Waid, George Pérez and inkers Bob Wiacek and Scott Koblish have crafted an intergalactic romp through time and space that rips across the DC Universe in a funny, thrilling and immensely satisfying murder-mystery-come-universal-conquest saga.

When Batman and Green Lantern discover absolutely identical corpses hundreds of miles apart it sets them on the trail of probability-warping aliens and the missing Book of Destiny – a mystical chronicle of everything that ever was, is, and will be!

Each issue/chapter highlights a different team-up and eventually the hunt by Adam Strange, Blue Beetle, Destiny (of the Endless, no less), the Legion of Super Heroes, Lobo, Supergirl and a mystery favourite from long-ago (you’ll thank me for not blowing the secret, honestly!) plus an incredible assortment of cameo stars coalesces into a fabulous free-for-all that affirms and reinforces all the reasons I love this medium.

With the value-added bonus of a an annotated exploration of Waid and Pérez’s creative process to entrance the aspiring creator-of-tomorrow, this is a great story, with great art and is perfect for all ages to read and re-read over and over again.

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