The end – almost.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Lemire
Art: Caitlin Yarsky
Letterer: Nate Piekos of BLAMBOT
What They Say:
Multiple worlds collide in this final issue of the hit Black Hammer superhero saga where villains and heroes unite to stop the multiverse from unraveling.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s hard to believe that the end is here, though I’m sure most hold out hope for a return of some sort at some point since this is a pretty open-ended concept with what’s come before to play with. Jeff Lemire may put a final close on it for a good while though and it’s definitely been a wild ride, which I expected from him. Lemire’s pick to work with Caitlin Yarsky was a huge high point for me and I’m glad to see them back on the book at this point. It made sense to change things up for Weird’s arc but having them back works well here as things escalate. It reminds me a lot of what the original series had, which I can attribute to Dave Stewart’s masterful use of color design, but it has a different kind of expressiveness that works just as well to amplify the situations.
With this installment, events are moving at a fast pace and there are a couple of things going on, though again there really are two tracks. The initial piece is just putting together what’s happening with all the worlds/timelines colliding. The cast is unable to do anything about it but the arrival of the Parliament of Weird is what’s going to give them hope. It’s a delight seeing such a varied number of them here and talking about how there is a plan, thanks to Talky Walky having gone through the para-verses to basically map it out and provide an army of heroes. There’s a small carve-out here that allows Skulldigger to panic as this is so beyond his skillset but we see one of the Weird’s helping him to evolve into Spacedigger and it’s a delight to see him make this fantastical leap. It’s not the kind of thing you want to see stick, in a regular mainstream book, but here it’s the right kind of in-the-moment evolution.
The other main plotline involves Lucy, naturally. We see her facing off against her father from another dimension and he does eventually gain the upper hand – and her hammer. That sends her into a spiral that others rescue her from but has Weird now trying to close the loop on how he “killed” her family before by bringing her to them in this other place. With this version of the farm being our real world, he tells her that she needs to be a part of what’s coming in their universe to help defend it. But that he’s been able to bring her family here to survive it and live. She’s given the choice on what to do but she wants nothing to do with being a hero now and just wants to be a mother. It’s an understandable position with all that has happened before and what she’s been through, and believing her family was dead, but it’s also a hard one to watch because you almost always want the hero to be more.
In Summary:
Of course, this isn’t the true end of Black Hammer as there is still a “phase three” project that is planned for some time in 2023 with Black Hammer: The End. With Lemire now signed onto Image for an exclusive deal, there was a carve-out to finish this but that would take time and come later. That’s all a big ball of uncertainty and we’ll see what it becomes eventually, but for now, this is as close as to the end as we can get. The Reborn series draws to a close and in some way delivers us a quiet end for Lucy (for now) and provides some closure there while opening up to the chaos of what the final piece will be. I’m definitely looking forward to it, but until it comes about, it’s time to put it out of mind.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: May 18th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
