Jeff Lemire’s superhero universe is back after a brief hiatus and… everything is different again! Reality is obviously a relative term.
Black Hammer: Age of Doom 8
Written by Jeff Lemire
Pencils and Inks by Dean Ormston
Colors by Dave Stewart
IN THIS ISSUE, EVERYTHING CHANGES! That’s a pretty common refrain in comic books, where the big changes end up being ignored or forgotten within a couple of issues. But within the BLACK HAMMER universe, everything is completely different for the stars of our story.
The farm where Abraham Slam and his band of displaced heroes had been trapped for decades is gone, revealed as the mental prison that it was, while the heroes were in stasis in space. And now that WE know where the heroes have been since the disappeared from Spiral City (or do we…?), everything is different again. Lemire puts them back in unfamiliar situations that feel completely familiar to them, yet still somehow wrong.
While Barbalien is back on Mars and Slam is a security guard, Lucy Weber – the daughter of the Black Hammer – is working in a pizza place in a very mundane Spiral City, wishing that her life had some more excitement.
Yeah, getting a call like that probably counts. This is such a great panel, and it leads to Lucy meeting up with Talky Walky, the robot sidekick that was killed a few issues back.
This reality is completely messed up, but it’s so engaging.
Every issue of BLACK HAMMER seems to open up new questions about what these heroes are going through, without ever really answering them. Even when we get answers they’re wrapped up in more questions. But Lemire’s writing and Ormston’s art make the journey completely worthwhile.