Sometimes we all feel like Colonel Weird.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Tyler Crook
Letterer: Tyler Crook
What They Say:
Wacky space adventurer Colonel Randall Weird leaves Black Hammer farm and embarks on a strange journey through space and time for something that he’s long forgotten with his sanity and life at stake!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s been a while since I last saw a Black Hammer related book but getting the start of the Colonel Weird series in my hands felt wonderful. Jeff Lemire overdelivered in my mind when it came to this property and getting to spend some time with the hardest of the characters to make engaging to an audience is the challenge I’m looking for. Lemire has paired up with Tyler Crook for the art duties. This is my first experience with Crook’s artwork as his other projects haven’t been on my radar but I definitely like how he captures all the different periods and experiences of the Colonel here as we get put on the first step of a long and strange journey ahead.
With it being so long since I last saw a Black Hammer book, I don’t know exactly where this places within the timeline but Weird always gets outside of the timeline. What we’re on here is a journey that starts at the very end to try and put things where they need to be for Weird so that he understands himself. You get the sense that the structure of his mind is what’s at stake as he’s reaching a point where it just won’t function in the right way anymore. We see a lot of this struggle as he’s in place that takes him to his past, reminding him that he was a child named Randall once, going to the little remote market in order to get things for his mother. The book takes us through that and other areas in his timeline such as standing alongside the gang in the face of the Anti-God and others with them. But we also have Weird remembering Abraham right from the start as the time spent at the Farm was such a significant one.
I really liked seeing more of the mission that first introduced him to the gateway he went through where everything changed, getting to see him as the competent astronaut, flirting with Eve as 1956 was getting closer to finishing out. But we also see how these flashes of the past are impacting him in this place, such as seeing his spaceship before him once again and the connections that sprung from there. The phrase that comes up in an interesting was is his having seen the pattern and others wanting to know it. But it’s his confrontation with his other selves, all wanting to help him before he presumably fractures more, that really is the most intriguing and then starting on the journey with the youngest of them.
In Summary:
Colonel Weird, like all of the characters, played a pivotal role in the main Black Hammer storyline at the farm and really helped to shape how it all happened. Shifting him to his own series is definitely welcome as there’s so much to explore here and the first tastes of it definitely has its hooks in me. I really like seeing more of his childhood here, more of his time as the competent/excellent astronaut, but also more of his time post-gateway that changed him. Lemire knows the character well and Crook delivers a gorgeous book from top to bottom with its design and look, making him an excellent partner on the project. It looks fantastic with its detail and the softer palette for the color design that makes it feel like it’s from a whole other time. I can’t wait to see what’s next as the journey gets underway.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 28th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
