A multidimensional nightmare wreaks chaos on Spiral City as the powerful superhero known as the Black Hammer joins forces with the brutal vigilante known as the Skulldigger to put an end to this madness in Black Hammer: Reborn #5, written by Jeff Lemire, drawn by Malachi Ward, Matthew Sheean and Rich Tomasso, and lettered by Nate Piekos.
In the two previous Black Hammer ongoing series, issues with fill-in artists have always come with a change of focus. Whether itâs David RubĂnâs issues of Black Hammer leaving The Farm and developing the story of Lucy Weber growing up without her father, or Rich Tomassoâs issues of Age of Doom following Colonel Weird into the pocket dimension of discarded comics characters, Lemire has used a shift in artists to digress from the main plot. These digressions ultimately serve not only to deepen but to reframe our entire understanding of the main arc.Â
Black Hammer: Reborn #5, with Malachi Ward and Matthew Sheean taking over art duties for Caitlin Yarsky, is an entirely different situation. Rather than being a digression, this issue is a straight continuation of the story thus far. There is, however, something of a tonal shift. While the first four issues dealt with Lucy the wife and mother trying to escape her past as the superhero Black Hammer, this issue has Lucy having assumed the Black Hammer identity for the entire issue: present, flashbacks and all.
Ward and Sheeanâs art is moodier, with deeper shadows and much more prominent hatching. The first page takes on the appearance of an improperly matted film reel, where the previous and next frames are visible on the page, just poking in above and below the main panel. Lucy sits in shock, broken, her world out of alignment. Her family is gone, vaporized by a clichĂ© sci-fi raygun. No longer a wife, no longer a mother, all she has left is the Black Hammer. All she is is Black Hammer.
When the T.R.I.D.E.N.T. agents confront her and ask her if she can save the city from the strange, multidimensional incursions, her response to them is âIsnât that your job?â Sheâs not interested in saving the world. Her world is already beyond saving. And so when she travels to the strange âOther Spiral,â the mirror image hanging in the sky above Spiral City, itâs not with the intention of saving the world as a superhero; itâs not with any clear conscious intention at all. But her confrontation with Skulldigger might reveal her subconscious motivation: revenge. She wants to smash someone, anyone responsible for losing her family. And if Colonel Weird isnât around, Skulldigger will have to do.
Ultimately, the Liberty Squadron who stops her are the alternate-universe versions of Grim Jim, Metal Minotaur, Mectoplasm, Ghost Hunter, Sherlock Frankenstein and Cthu-Lou. For the most part, these are characters that were introduced in Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil, with the exception of Ghost Hunter, whose prime-universe counterpart was a German air ace in Black Hammer â45.
Theyâre an interesting group to revisit, and Iâm especially interested in seeing the alternate version of Grim Jim, who is as purely an evil character as Black Hammer has. An alternate, purely good version of the character will be fascinating to see interacting with the antiheroic Skulldigger.
Dispatches from the Para-Zone
- Ward and Sheeanâs rendering of Black Hammer flying up from Spiral Prime turning into flying down to Other Spiral is a wonderful page, showing an awkward reorientation of Lucyâs body, as well as the transition from being lit from above to being underlit.
- Lucyâs declaration that âThe Unteens are deadâ is interesting, in that in The Unbelievable Unteens, the team is entirely forgotten and are believed to be a fictional construct.
- This is the first of four issues being drawn by Ward and Sheean.
