Reviews

Black Hammer Volume 3: Age of Doom Part One by Jeff Lemire

shane_tiernan's review

5.0

More amazingness!!! I LOVE the retro feel, the story was great, the characters are great. The only thing I don't like is that all the male characters look the same and all the female characters look the same. All the men have long rectangular faces with the same eyes, all the women have round faces with the same eyes and pouty lips. It's distracting and at times confusing, because I can't tell who's who. It seems like it might have been brought up during the creation of the comic. It's so obvious that I almost thought it was "a trick", like in the end all the women were going to be revealed to be the same person and then the men too.

zorpblorp's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

howardtaftmd's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

bri__gu's review

5.0

So consistently solid. What a cliffhanger.

joshgauthier's review

5.0

Oh...

Oh my. This changes everything.

Delivering another dose of everything that has made this series so remarkable, Lemire also delivers a wealth of shocking revelations and new questions that take the story to a whole new chapter of our heroes' misadventures.

shri_ace13's review

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ostrava's review

5.0

This was great. Very well done twist that keeps on giving from what the ending implied (it's starting to remind me of the freakier parts of Bojack Horseman for some reason).

It is also reminding me of Egyptian mythology, which I recently visited and ignored in terms of chaos and order and so on. Is that where these tropes originated? Either way, I tend to love them and I think they were applied with originality in this comic.

Off topic, but why does every good comic book that gets a little bit abstract require one mandatory Sandman reference? Is there a law that forces writers to do this? What did I miss, lol.

some_okie_dude27's review

A friend of mine once told me that it is much easier to set up a mystery than it is to finish one, and as we've seen with shows like Lost or The X-Files, that is definitely true. Beginning this volume had me nervous. Lemire has crafted a mystery that is so enthralling, so entrancing, that you almost feel bad once you get the answers, because the questioning and theorizing proved to be far more fun than actually getting the answers. Did Lemire falter?

Happily, I can say no. But I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get more of the character depth that was in the first two volumes. It was there, but this arc was much more plot focused and finally explaining the big mystery. I noticed a lot of people complaining on here about things not really happening in the first two comics, but I was won over by the characters, their struggles, and Lemire's attention to detail when it came to their relationships. Luckily, Lemire doesn't overexplain himself and fall into the trap that Mignola and Tynion did by killing the mystique of their world by neatly explaining everything. Lemire explains most things, but never loses track of the strange and the mysterious when telling his story.

But what did disappoint me was that the emotional angle was neglected in this arc. It makes sense since the story is moving along, but I wish that Lemire would have found the balance between character and story that he did in the two previous arcs. Of course, there are times for angst and there are times for being on the mission. There has to be a plot to move along in order for all of these

Despite my gripes, Black Hammer continues to be a delight and Lemire makes up for his more plot focused arc in this by flexing his and Ormston's imaginative muscles. We see expies of John Constantine, The Endless from The Sandman, Deadman, and we even see a small cameo from my favorite Lemire series Sweet Tooth, which gave me a chuckle. As mentioned before, Lemire's commentary on comics proves to have a lighter touch than Moore's or Cooke's, and his focus tends to be more personal than the approach of those men. But Lemire takes the right notes from those two and continues to make his heroes human as much as they are super, which is always appreciated.

Ormston's art continues to be a delight, he combines the blockiness of Jack Kirby's style with a grounded realism, with a tinge of Frank Quitely's style that puts him right at home in a superhero comic, while also distinguishing himself from other superhero stories by creating his own distinct feel. It's a style that's familiar and distinct, and it's often hard to find an artist who can balance that well. It's all the more impressive considering that during the creation of this series, he suffered a nearly fatal stroke. I am saddened that he has retired from comics after Black Hammer, as his style is fitting for the story that Lemire wants to tell.

As I've noted, I've found Black Hammer to be such a breath of fresh air because it isn't trying to make any grand statements about the superhero genre or anything of that sort. It's quietly commenting on the history of the genre, as well as the medium of comics itself while grounding itself with its characters and down to earth storytelling. Even when we get to the weirder stuff, Lemire never loses that personal tone...at least not fully. There is a deeply human element that keeps this series compelling to me.

Lemire and Ormston continue strong, and I can only hope that they stick the landing...and I think we'll find that out sooner rather than later...

lisaroystoj's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Love where this story is going.  I thought Storyland and it's family were fun new additions, and I hope we get to see more of Jack Sabbath.  

themtj's review

4.0

GREAT twist!