Grifter #1Written by Nathan EdmonsonArt by CafuReviewed by Alex A few years back, there was this TV programme called Lost. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it; apparently DC haven’t, given that the logo for Legion Lost (reviewed below by Tim) looks like this: And it’s fine that DC have never seen, nor heard of, this moderately successful TV programme. Some would argue, after that ending, that it’s actually for the best for them. But you’d think they’d at least have a researcher with his eye on these popular TV things, in case something like Grifter ever happened. Okay, so Grifter stars a ever-so-slightly-Southern conman with long blonde hair and swarthy good looks. I’m not great at visual description, so in case you need help, he looks roughly like this: …oops, sorry, I meant like this… I’m being unfair, aren’t I? I pulled the oldest trick in the book there, switching the pictures round for a cheap laugh. It was beneath me and I apologise. And I’m led to believe that Grifter is a pre-existing character (and frankly, looking at that costume, he could only be a product of the ’90s). However, what I’m saying is: if you have a character who is really rather similar to another character so embedded in the collective pop-culture consciousness, it might not be all that wise to open your first issue on an aeroplane. And as the weird stuff on that aeroplane starts to mount, and you make dark references to mysteries not yet of the reader’s ken, it might not be the best idea to start revealing that by flashing back to the character’s life before things got all weird. And then proceeds onto several shocking reveals, including a ‘messing with your sense of time’ twist. (Admittedly, there are aliens or some such. Which Lost didn’t have. However, which existing Lost-ripoff The Event did have. On an aeroplane. With someone pulling something out from under their skin, in a slightly gross way, as also happens here.) I mean no disrespect to Nathan Edmonson here. I’ve heard Who is Jake Ellis? is a fine comic book, but this issue seriously reads like he got the call from DC, found out he’d pulled the short straw labelled ‘Grifter’, and decided to spend his advance getting bombed in his flat in the company of a couple of boxsets. Which, being fair, is exactly what I’d do too. LAD. Rating: E Mister Terrific #1Written by Eric WallaceArt by Gianluca GugliottaReviewed by Tim A character called ‘Mister Terrific’ is always going to have his work cut out for him. For someone who is presented as the third smartest man in the world, as well as a billionaire businessman, you’d have thought he would have invested in some market research first. It’s been interesting reading the second- and third-tier titles of this new DC Universe for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that each has been establishing their particular corner of the world. Men of War’s primary strip showed us war in a super-powered world, Stormwatch took us into the renegade black-ops weirdness just under the surface of traditional superhero antics, and Resurrection Man began exploring the cosmology and metaphysical roots of the New 52. As well as establishing a tone for the title, they also stake out a boundary in this new, different world. War is like this, angels work like this; while the big names tell their stories in the centre of the universe, the smaller titles are out at the fringes, marking territory. Mister Terrific seems set to do this for the realm of super-science in the new DCU. Having finished the comic, I took some time to think about science-based heroes in the DCU, and realised there are remarkably few. In the Marvel world, you can’t move without tripping over a scientist-hero (Iron Man, half of the Fantastic Four, Bruce Banner, whatever Hank Pym’s calling himself nowadays…) whereas in DC comics, there’s Steel, the Atom and Mister Terrific, and that’s about it. Sure, Batman is supposed to be a scientific genius, but that’s not how he’s framed by stories, and that’s not the world he inhabits. Maybe it’s that so many of the characters were devised in the ’30s, when there was less of sense of scientific exploration, and a lingering resentment towards the big business figures who’d let the Great Depression happen. Who knows? But it’s clear that there’s a vacancy for a scientific figurehead in the DC universe, and Mister Terrific aims to fill it. You’ll notice that I haven’t actually said anything about the comic itself yet, and that’s mainly because it left very little impression. It was fine as an opening slice of superhero action. Eric Wallace establishes the character, his supporting cast and his little corner of the world well enough, and Gianluca Gugliotta’s art tells the story with the minimum of fuss and enough spark to keep it moderately interesting; but both as a character and as a first issue, Mister Terrific has very little to make him pop. His origins feel so entirely generic that they give the character no real definition, and the story we’re presented with, while competent, has none of the sense of wonder or exploration that science heroes should inspire, and never truly breaks out any of the weird and impossible technology or concepts that the book could support. There’s nothing especially wrong with the issue, but it feels like superheroes-by-numbers, and the opportunity that these first issues present to reinvigorate characters shouldn’t be squandered on such generic fare.Rating: C- Demon Knights #1Written by Paul CornellArt by Diógenes NevesReviewed by Alex I want to like this comic, I do. There’s a lot to like about it (okay, here be spoilers). An exploding possessed baby which, continuing the trend of the DC New 52 embracing the horror genre, is genuinely creepy. The love triangle between Xanadu, the demon fella you see to the right there, Etrigan, and his human […]