Let’s get Weird.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Malachi Ward, Matthew Sheean
Colors: Malachi Ward
Letterer: Nate Piekos of BLAMBOT
What They Say:
The mad space-faring adventurer Colonel Weird and his trusty robot companion Talky-Walky have spent months mapping out the bizarre intricacies of the Para-zone only to find themselves trapped in an interdimensional nightmare in which there is no escape!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Black Hammer got underway with a new arc recently, which shifted things in the art department but also in the story so that it’s definitely distinctive. Lemire’s got a knack of expanding and introducing things while playing off the core material – and the classic comics of decades from long ago – and that makes for an intriguing turn of events. For this arc, Black Hammer Reborn has Malachi Ward and Matthew Sheean on the art duties and it provides its own distinctiveness to it. It still feels very much in the world of Black Hammer as established previously, but it also is its own thing in some really good ways. Ward’s layouts look good but I really dig the character placement and movement of the camera around situations in order to deliver a really good experience as a reader.
With a lot of things set up in the last issue or two with this arc, this installment takes us to following Colonel Weird for it. I like Weird and I’ve enjoyed the miniseries he got and his appearances in general. But Weird is not easy to follow because it does take some leaps and is used to showcase things in a way that don’t always come naturally, making it an easy way to deal with things in shorthand. I like the mystery and uncertainty of it at times but at the same time, it’s often just Weird being weird and you’re left trying to suss out if there’s real meaning here. With how we saw Weird handling the family in the previous arc at the end by threatening them and zapping them, that does come up here again – from a different perspective – and it just adds to the uncertainty of all things because Weird is clearly having a bad time here in understanding things.
With Weird and Talky-Walky working on mapping the Para-Zone and utilizing its findings inside the “brain” Archive that has been built, we see a bit of how this unfolds and how Talky-Walky is pretty proud of what’s been put together. But when Weird returns and an anomaly appears, it sends Weird to investigate because things feel off to him. What we get is him sucked into another timeline or parallel universe where he sees a different Doctor Andromeda who calls the Para-Zone the Para-Verse. This may just be a simple and quick shorthand for introducing a multiverse into all of this, as Lemire has played with a lot of the basic comic concepts over the run of Black Hammer in this way, so it’s easy to figure out in a simplistic kind of way. What Lemire is actually going for is unclear right now, but it is fun to see different versions of the old gang, such as Gorilla Gail, and run with that for a bit. The nod to the Anti-God is intriguing, however.
In Summary:
Black Hammer Reborn continues to move in interesting directions with this arc and I like the way it’s being told through the different art style as well. This issue with its focus on Colonel Weird is one of those things that may bother some more than others, but I generally like Weird so this was an amusing and interesting issue even if it’s more hints and shorthand than answers or clear narration of where things are going and what it intends to be. It definitely looks good and has some neat moments to it that may come back to haunt with greater meaning before we know it.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 29th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
