Going Down Danger Street!

At first, I intended to give a no-holds barred issue by issue review of Danger Street. The limited series takes the often-forgotten heroes featured in the thirteen issues of First Issue Special, a Showcase-style series DC made use of in the Bronze Age. Not all of the heroes in the series were throwaways such as Warlord which went on to become a big hit for DC. The New Gods also have been revived time and again over the decades. Mainstays like The Creeper, Dr. Fate and Metamorpho find life now again in the pages of DC Comics. And even Manhunter has been used and to my mind somewhat abused over time. But others such as Atlas, The Green Team, The Outsiders (not the Batman version), Lady Cop, Starman (not the Earth II versions), and Codename: Assassin have been little used to say the least. 

But after reading the series, I don't want to spoil in anyway what proved to be a pretty compelling yarn. This is a stew for sure, disparate characters thrown into a cooker pressure and then left to simmer. One is often left to wonder if the result will taste any good at all. I can say this brew has a heady taste indeed. The best I can say is that Tom King has created a story which is the Brothers Grimm meet Quentin Tarantino. We have a Princess (Lady Cop) and three Princes (Warlord, Starman, and Metamorpho), four Young Lads (Dingbats of Danger Street), an Ogre (The Creeper), a Giant (Atlas), two Knights (Manhunter and Codename: Assassin), some Monsters (The Green Team), some Rogues (The Outsiders), and sundry Dragons (The New Gods of New Genesis and Apokolips). 

The story is narrated by the Helmet of Fate, which it turns out plays a key part in the saga as well. Characters arrive from all over and tumble into one another's lives. Some are connected in ways we never imagined. Some seem destined to clash. Most are just trying to survive another day. To describe the interactions and fates of the various heroes and assorted characters would be the spoil some terrific surprises. But it is sufficient to say that not everyone gets out alive. 

Here are the sundry covers for this series.  

Highly Recommended. 

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Mister Miracle!

This particular iteration of Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerads I avoided on the stands and since it was very quickly a hit, I knew a trade would sooner or later present itself. It has done so and now I can confirm that I am far removed from the tastes of modern comic readers. 

To say that these are not the same heroes created by Jack "King" Kirby is putting it mildly. This is the very essence of what has become the norm for modern comics telling I guess -- stories in which very little happens. There's lots and lots and lots of talking but the visuals are generally quite static and designed to focus attention on the faces or the body language. There is decent humor in this protracted yarn, especially a peace treaty meeting led by Kalibak of all creatures, but mostly there's irony.

There's tons and tons of irony and social commentary as we see Scott and Barda deal with the deaths of friends and loved ones and confront the responsibilities of waging war on New Genesis and keeping up their upper-middle class family lifestyle here on Earth. This is a story about self-discovery and that's fine, but after a bit it gets tiresome.

Scott Free is a god with worries and frets about his personal mortality who actually kicks off this story by attempting suicide, and he's hardly the kind of fellow one would imagine filling out the costume of Mister Miracle. Orion and Lightray come in for some extremely rough handling -- one cold and villainous and the other a feckless yet still cruel toady. (I didn't detect the Forever People, but Funky Flashman and Metron are both on hand.) 

The bold and earthy forthright bravery of Kirby's original Fourth World stories is supplanted here by an attempt to make the heroes more like us instead of inspiring us to be more like them. Sad that really. 

Here the covers.

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