Black Hammer #3

Script: Jeff Lemire
Art: Dean Ormston
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Todd Klein
Publisher: Dark Horse

Black Hammer is back! I was itching to read the continuation of this series ever since I got last month's wonderful issue. This series is structurally very similar to Lemire and Emi Lenox's Plutona, with every issue focusing on a single character. Plutona was less of a slow-burn, with the story escalating really quick, despite its anti-climatic conclusion. Black Hammer's enhanced focus on its cast's backstories allows Lemire to write nuanced, layered characters. There's been scenes in the last two chapters of the series tying back to the more general mystery that was laid out in the first issue but it doesn't really make a lot of sense considering how little information we have right now. But I've found the last 2 issues fascinating to read thanks to Lemire's character-building.

Some people have theorized that this was originally conceived as a Justice League book, and while Golden Gail and Barbalien (the character that this issue focuses in) do resemble Shazam and Martian Manhunter a lot, the most resonant moments in issues #2 and #3 featuring those characters have been based on aspects of Lemire's characters that are definitely not present in their DC counterparts. In this case, it is Barbalien's romantic life, as Lemire writes him as a gay character.

Exiled by his race because of his ungwillingness to partake in violence, Barbalien adopts the alter ego of a police officer when he lands on Earth. Lemire and Ormston do a fine job of portraying how Mark adapts to life on Earth in basically two scenes, and we are shown the close bond . When Mark makes a pass on him and he sternly rejects him, Barbalien goes on a rampage against the mafiosi that they were staking out. Ormston and Stewart do a magnificent job intertwining this scene with vignettes from Barbalien's life at the small town where he's trapped at. More than Barbalien's queerness, the crux of the issue is his loneliness. Lemire is, for lack of a better word, a very compassionate writer. The way that he approaches his cast of characters is really unique in fiction, there's an undertone of solitude in a lot of his work that I connect with a lot. And that angle works really well with Barbalien, who's portrayed as always having been a loner.

Todd Klein gets to play a little with fonts in the opening scene. Barbalien's conversation with other martians is somewhat reminiscent of the font used at Marvel for Skrulls and other alien characters. Stewart's coloring in the aforementioned scene where Barbalien yells at a bunch of people with guns while beating em up is actually very clever. His coloring has been more opaque than usual this series but a brighter red slowly takes over that scene.

Ormston's layouts have been more rigid in the past 2 issues as opposed to the opener, which I believe is a good thing. The black margins are mostly gone. I thought the constant switching between white and black margins and full page panels made the pages clash a bit. Listen, I do realize that is a very fickle complaint, especially since I'm a big fan of how Black Hammer looks and it's not like Ormston was doing JH Williams layouts but I always like when a comic has a cohesive look. And the mixture of negative space and full page panels here works better than it did on Black Hammer #1.

I wasn't too excited about Black Hammer's premise at first but the all-star creative team has surpassed my expectations. This issue is as great as the last one. I really can't recommend this book enough.