Harbinger #11 – Review

By: Joshua Dysart (Writer), Khari Evans, Trevor Hairsine (Artists), Ian Hannin (Colorist)

The Story: We get to know a little bit more about the ties between Project Rising Spirit and the Hayada Corporation, while we get some more exploration of the renegades and their plans for the future.

The Review: Harbinger has been a kind of weird title in the renewed Valiant universe. With most titles already having a direction of some kind, with X-O Manowar and the fight against the Vine, Bloodshot with Project Rising Spirits and so forth, they had a pretty strong direction providing us with a great plot and some very neat concepts for their part in the Valiant universe. However, Harbinger has been the odd duck in the row, with the antagonist being set up, albeit in an ambiguous way, as well as with its protagonists, giving us a book that evolved very slowly through its first year.

This may sound like an insult to the title, but it’s the contrary in fact, as this weird direction has been one of its greatest strength. By giving us an ambiguous villain in Toyo Harada and more human and definitely flawed characters with Peter Stanchek and the others, Joshua Dysart has given us a title that lets its readers get information while the story focuses a lot more on the characters. By making us much more aware of who these characters are Dysart makes the story more about them, making us care about what they go through and what they want as they experience and show us the world of the Harbingers and their weird power.

Legends of the Dark Knight #3 – Review

By: Steve Niles (story), Trevor Hairsine (art), Antonio Fabela (colors)

The Story: Batman begins to wonder if the GCPD is even trying anymore.

The Review: I’ve been of several minds with these digital-first comics.  On the one hand, I hate to start turning into the old fogey who dismisses them just because of their medium.  On the other, I don’t think anyone can deny that at least the ones from DC haven’t been that impressive.  At best, they seem like elaborate, well-crafted back-up stories with extra pages: out of continuity, largely unimportant, easily lost among the prodigious output of mainstream titles.

This issue in particular has the feeling of one of Sholly Fisch’s sentimental pieces in the back matter of Action Comics, only it has zero bearing on canon.  The premise itself—Batman reading through bags of letters addressed to him a la Santa Claus—is pretty cloying and, frankly, a very simple and limited basis for storytelling.  The most anyone can really do with that is vary between epistles of gratitude or resentment, and so it goes here.

National Comics: Madame X #1 – Review

By: Rob Williams (story), Trevor Hairsine (art), Antonio Fabela (colors)

The Story: If only every law firm could have its very own precog to work their cases.

The Review: Maybe I missed a memo that would never come to me anyway, but I’d been under the impression that National Comics, for all its format strangeness, still had a firm place in the DCU.  Allusions to big-name superheroes in Jeff Lemire’s Eternity feature implied as much, but neither Rose and Thorn nor Looker made even that much use of other DC characters.  Very odd, then, that we’d have an issue featuring someone who already stars in not one, but two ongoings.

At first, I tried to square the two versions of Xanadu: the immortal occultist who appears in Demon Knights and Justice League Dark, and the legal consultant with the stage name Madame X.  I failed.  “Nima” is less put-together, and far more narrow-minded when it comes to the kind of magic she believes in.  What sealed the difference, weirdly enough, was her declaration that zombies don’t exist, even though Xanadu in Demon Knights saw her own half-brother as a staggering undead.  So we have something of an Elseworlds tale here, folks.