The series draws to a close while opening up the world once again.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Dean Ormston
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Todd Klein
What They Say:
The Eisner Award-winning superhero saga concludes! In this final episode of the Age of Doom series, all the questions are finally answered about what put our heroes on the farm, why, and where we go from here.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Black Hammer has certainly grown significantly since that first issue landed and Jeff Lemire has to be pleased by what he’s been able to create and play with. This series has been dealing with the group well as they got thrown into a new life after escaping the Farm and making their discoveries of what happened, which was chaotic and fun at the same time. Dean Ormston has dealt with these characters for quite some time now and there’s a good sense of love and care that goes into so many scenes here, especially with Dragonfly, that you can’t help but feel connected with it all. Especially thanks to how Dave Stewart colors it. It’s a rich finale overall.
With the Anti-God almost here, the confrontation with Madame Dragonfly is where it’s all landed. The deception she plays is amusing as she can’t believe who everyone is but even Lucy knows that using the hammer to smack her into understanding won’t work because Dragonfly is pretending at not knowing them. She didn’t actually get her memory wiped and has spent her time creating a place for herself here with her fake family and finding the peace that she couldn’t on the farm. It’s a brutal sequence overall because she knows what she’s losing and even knowing how Abe will make it clear that they’re all her real family now will ring hollow in the face of it. It unfolds really well here and the way they do come together as a group, even with Gail being pretty snippy about the whole thing, is spot on.
Facing the Anti-God just isn’t going to work and that means the only real choice is recreating the Farm and going back there to protect the world. It’s a nice kind of quiet version of Ragnarok when you get down to it, completely the Justice Society nods. The panic over doing this is understandable but it’s all the changes that draw you in and do leave you wanting to revisit it in longer form. Seeing Sherlock arrive to assuage Gail’s feelings and then to see how he’s changed into a child to play with her is just beautiful after reading their own miniseries. It does seem like everyone is a lot more embedded in this world with no memories of where they came, though that could be a sham itself, but the sense here that it’s authentic is exciting to see because they do all seem to be finding their happiness in their own ways.
In Summary:
The end of Black Hammer brings us to an interesting point as we know more projects are coming but there’s not a lot of clarity on them at the moment. I can see Lemire putting this cast aside for a bit to let them enjoy some happiness and exploring some other ideas first. There’s a lot of good emotional beats with this issue in how it brings things together and resolves some longstanding issues but it does it in a way that leaves me wanting to see more of it, even just as a slice of life kind of property. I want to see their happiness and partake in it. It’s a good book that Dean Ormston delivers here with the artwork with Dave Stewart and hopefully we’ll see some nice oversized high-quality editions over the years to savor and revisit it in.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 18th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99