Another story of tragedy in Spiral City.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Max Fiumara
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
An aged crime fighter desperately wants to reconnect with his estranged son, who he hoped would one day take the mantle of Doctor Star. Over the course of the story, we learn his World War II-era origin, how he got his powers, his exciting astral adventures, the formation of some of Black Hammer’s greatest heroes, and more in this heartbreaking superhero tale about fathers and sons.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a strong main series and a fun spinoff miniseries recently, the Black Hammer universe with stories set in Spiral City are hitting a certain sweet spot. While in many ways this is familiar territory for long time comics readers, Jeff Lemire is making it an engaging read with solid characters and a concept that hits a sweet spot. With this series, focusing on Doctor Star, he’s paired with Max Fiumara to tell the tale and it’s an ideal arrangement. Fiumara’s artwork, particularly of the older Jim, has the right kind of tragedy about it that you’d expect from someone ruminating about their life and choices and with all that’s revealed here. But there’s also a good sense of classic old school golden age material here when we get the 1940’s storyline that hits another sweet spot. Blending the two doesn’t always work in some other series but there’s such a good sense of “self” about the book that it clicks perfectly.
The series is working a familiar design as we have the original Doctor Star, quite old at this point, writing to his son Charlie about the events that have lead him to where he is now. There’s a really drab look to all of it as we see him going through some of the motions, the weight of time and age on his face and body, and the way it comes through with a sadness in the letter that he’s putting to paper. The dreariness of the day with the overcast nature only adds to it and as we get more into the hospital where he’s visiting his son, as it’s pretty much easy to expect as one of a few paths for the letter writing to be about, it builds to this impact in an organic if familiar way. Jim’s questioning the choices he made for obvious reasons, knowing they can’t be changed, but also kind of wanting to absolve himself of some of the results of it in a way.
With him relating the tale of the past, we see how he was working research into the Para-Zone back in 1941 and the government, prior to getting into the war, was looking for new ways for weapons to be created and ended up funding him. This had a huge impact on his personal life as his wife and newborn son were almost forgotten in a lot of ways as he threw himself into his research. Fiumara does a fantastic job of showing this piece of the origin with the blueprint background and the work as it progresses, and the light touch as to how he touched the stars that gave him his name. It’s not a richly detailed story in a sense for an origin but it fits the “golden age” style as it should. We don’t see much as to how/why his discovery wasn’t exploited in other ways, at least at the moment, but we see the high that he’s on with the power pushing him to suiting up in a way to join other heroes of Spiral City to do their part in the war, which is again given a classic feel without the weight of it – at least not yet.
In Summary:
Doctor Star is a familiar story told in a familiar way but with such a polished and engaging execution riding on top of the events of other Black Hammer universe works that it’s simply raised up by that alone. Lemire and Fiumara are strong talents playing at the top of their game here and it shows. I’ve long enjoyed works that tackle the past in a new light and it’s been going on for decades and can still have surprises. This one is setting up its foundations very well with an engaging character in the title role, putting in a few supporting connections, and pulling it all together with fantastic artwork that gives it the emotional weight it needs. The next issue cannot come soon enough.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: March 7th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
