A new exploration into the Black Hammer world.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: David Rubin
Colors: Dave Stewart
What They Say:
Lucy Weber, daughter of the Black Hammer, grew up to become an investigative reporter for the Global Planet. Now she’s on the hunt for the true story about what happened to Spiral City’s superheroes after they defeated Anti-God and saved the world. All answers seem to lie with the dangerous super villain tenants of Spiral City’s infamous asylum. As she gets closer to the truth she uncovers the dark origin stories of some of her father’s greatest foes, and learns how they tie into the puzzle of what happened to Spiral City’s greatest hero.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the Black Hammer series taking a break for a bit and ending in such a strong way, a miniseries that focuses on Lucy Weber by digging into Sherlock Frankenstein is ideal. Jeff Lemire has wowed me regularly on the main series and other works and seeing him working with David Rubin again to tell these tales just clicks in a really big way for me. Rubin’s artwork is ideally suited to this as we see him showcasing some great talent here in bringing these numerous criminals to life and sometimes just the headshots during the prison walkabout scene makes you want to dig deep into many of them. Add in some really strong color design work from Dave Stewart to give it a separate but connected feeling to the main book and there’s such a strength of talent here that I can’t help but to grin.
Taking place prior to her connection with the Black Hammer series, the story here picks up on some of what we saw before with Lucy discovering her father’s secret headquarters as she continue to search for clues into his disappearance as she’s convinced he and the others did not die in the fight with the Anti-God. While there’s little she can find through the heroes she figures that approaching the villains will give her what she needs. And the most important one is that of Sherlock Frankenstein, one that has been around since the 1800’s and is sort of legitimate at the moment, though missing from public view for a few years. That leads her to trying to figure out clues to his own whereabouts as it may be related by seeking out those he worked with or twisted into working for him, which means heading to the prison where most of those that are still around reside in.
There’s some great backstory that we get through the warden here and the corrections officer that Lucy is assigned as both knew her father and each is striking in their design. But it’s the child-like Mectoplasm that she talks with that’s intriguing as we get his backstory of how Frankenstein manipulated him to give us more of an idea of what our title character is like through the eyes and actions of others. But it’s the meeting with Grimjim, unplanned at that, which reveals a lot more about what happened during the fight with the Anti-God that reveals that Frankenstein was there as well and disappeared during it along with the others. That throws a whole new round of curiosity as to the events of Black Hammer with what’s going on in the place where the heroes ended up but it also adds some really welcome color to events surrounding the cataclysmic event itself and how the low level criminal element was taking advantage of it.
In Summary:
Sherlock Frankenstein has put together strong talent to tell a story that will expand on a lot of characters, including one that has become a key player within the main Black Hammer series. Jeff Lemire leans into what the flashback side of things well here to give us more of a different range of periods and characters that has such a love of that era but done through modern style of writing to give it the thing it needs to connect. It’s old school trappings but with the expansive interconnected feeling of modern material. Combine that with some of Rubin’s best work yet with the character designs and that fantastic two-page spread of walking deeper into the prison and it’s exciting just on that visual level alone, never mind the strong script accompanying it. There’s more to come but this is a great start.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 18th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
