American writer Jeff Lemire returns this month to Urban Comics with his latest independent production: Black Hammer. Accompanied this time by Dean Ormston on drawing and Dave Stewart on color, the first volume entitled "Secret Origins" is already available in the publisher's Urban Indies collection!
Torn from their superhero worlds by a multidimensional crisis, the forgotten champions of Spiral City now live like a dysfunctional family, prisoners of the peaceful daily life of a small American town. (content: Black Hammer #1-6)
Black Hammer: Secret Origins
Very prolific for some time, Jeff Lemire has written as much for Marvel (Old Man Logan), DC comics (Animal Man) as for Valiant (Bloodshot Reborn). At the origin of many superheroic stories among the industry's leading publishers, the writer also relies on independent production, with Descenders, a science fiction series currently underway in the Indies collection of Urban Comics. So he returns today with Black Hammer, an independent series strongly influenced by his previous work and the golden-age of superheroic comics. We follow the story of an ancient group of superheroes composed of Abraham Slam (mentor of the group overtrain and without power), Golden Gail (a kind of woman-Shazam, transforming into a super-girl at the speech of a word), Barbalien (a transformist Martian with a plant appearance), Colonel Weird (former crazy astronaut with the ability to cross space-time), Lady Dragonfly (a swamp witch) and Talky-Walky, a robot straight from the 50s. All this small group finds themselves overnight stuck in a small American town following their clashes with the supreme nemesis of Spiral City and the alleged death of their friend Black Hammer in an unprecedented flash-bang. How did they end up there and especially why are they prisoners of what strongly resembles hell for most of the members of the group?Still, 10 years after this unfortunate incident, this bumpy family is still simmering in its juice.
If each member of the group necessarily reminds us of heroes we already know, Jeff Lemire easily drowns the fish with his effective writing of their early retirement. Between memories of their glorious past, questioning their lives and not always easy slices of life (especially for Gail, prisoner of her little girl's body), Black Hammer is a story that does not rely on the pure action inherent in the genre. The mystery surrounding their disappearances continues to grow over the pages and the screenwriter delivers a story distilling his keys in dribs and drabs, worrying more about his cast than his universe and context. Far from being modern entertainment in the strict sense of the term, Black Hammer smells of retro with its stereotypical characters referring to the former glories of comics. A tribute also supported by Dean Ormston, who occasionally draws pages in the story strongly referring to what Jack Kirby could do. However, it is in the slices of lives of the characters and the anguish that emerges that the cartoonist comes out best, with his sticky atmospheres of a village lost in the depths of the American countryside (well helped by Dave Stewart's colorization). A rather striking contrast, when the general visual aspect and the cutting, which are closer to European comics than "modern" comics. We will also highlight many bonuses at the end of the volume, with sketches comparing Jeff Lemire's preparatory work to the drawing and that of Dean Ormston.
Black Hammer is a story for an audience wishing to overcome the barrier of simple entertainment and cross those of eras. A story that smells good retro and the golden age of the superhero, while being very modern in the psychology of its protagonists. At JustFocus we are very eager to know where Jeff Lemire will take us next with this series which, if it is not perfect, has the potential to become a future classic.
