Reviews

Lucy Weber finally discovers the truth about the Farm and her father's death...

The big payoff is finally here, the truth behind the Farm, the truth behind where Spiral City's greatest heroes wound up after the battle with the Anti-God, and it's a whopper! I don't want to spoil too much but the revelation is well worth it. The new Black Hammer proves she's worth of her father's name and hammer.

I love how Jeff Lemire has woven together elements of silver age super heroes and DC's science fiction and horror titles into a long Twilight Zone episode. I did not expect to see the character analogues Lemire threw my way.

Lemire's writing is great and the rest of the creative team more than holds up their end of things. Dean Ormston and Dave Stewart knock the art out of the park and Todd Klein's lettering is as masterful as always.

Barbalien, Golden Gail, and Abraham Slam reacted like I thought they would to the revelation of what was going on. Now the way for the next installment begins. 4 out of 5 stars.

blairconrad's review against another edition

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4.0

Really enjoyed the new Black Hammer. She seems great. I appreciated the homage to other comics this time, but enjoyed it a bit less, which is a little surprising. The story continued to satisfy, even if I think I a little less emotionally invested overall. A little worried about where we go next…

davidchanza's review against another edition

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5.0

Sigue la historia de una forma tremenda y ahora ya con el giro que estaba esperando. Está siendo una gran serie la verdad, muy enganchable y una historia muy bien montada.

Con ganas del Vol.4.

dogfood's review against another edition

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4.0

Mit dem Ende des zweiten Bandes hat die Serie endgültig ihre Hauptfigur bekommen: Lucy Weber. Und sie kommt auch dem Geheimnis auf der Spur, warum die Superhelden auf der Farm festsitzen. Tatsächlich braucht es aber den gesamten dritten Band um das aufzulösen, denn der Autor Lemire baut auf der zweiten Seite ein riesiges Umleitungsschild und lässt Lucy Weber, die gerade die Auflösung verkünden will, verschwinden und erst einmal einen Subplot durchlaufen, dessen Notwendigkeit sich mir nicht erschloss.

Wie in den vorigen Bänden, gibt dies aber der Serie die Zeit & Muße, weiter an den zwischenmenschlichen Problemen von Abraham Slam, Barbalien, Golden Gail und Madame Dragonfly zu arbeiten. Auch wenn ich das Gefühl habe, dass es Lemire selber nicht erkennen will, sind es diese leisen, kleinen Stories, gepaart mit den kongenialen Zeichnungen von Dean Ormston und Farben von Dave Stewart, die die Serie neben all dem anderen Superheldenmaterial von Marvel, DC oder Image bestehen lassen.

Nach 102 Seiten wendet sich Lemire wieder dem Hauptplot zu, den er dann binnen 23 Seiten auflöst und gleich in den nächsten Cliffha…

archipeligo's review against another edition

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4.0

Spoiler

Lucy's sudden appearance has thrown everyone for a turn, but not as much as when she declares that she knows what's happening and then disappears. Colonel Weird mutters that it's not supposed to happen this way, and Gail turns on him, demanding to know what he means. Colonel Weird, too, disappears. Everyone else heads into the house for a drink, including, surprisingly, Madame Dragonfly.

Lucy wakes in a room and emerges into a tavern. She comes upon James the bartender, who notes that she's not from around here. Lucy demands to know where she is. Pointing out the tavern's inhabitants, he says that they are all "the monsters and the ghouls. The misfits and the delinquents. The gifted and the damned".

At the house, everyone begins to map out Lucy's last steps, hoping that they can also figure out the answer this place. They note, firstly, Lucy went to the library and looked up the town's history, but found only blank pages. Secondly, that other things might be related, like Trueheart's disappearance. Madame Dragonfly says that she'll look into Trueheart. Gail and Barbie visit the library - run by a very rude librarian - and go through the local history books, only to find that they are, in fact, NOT blank. They steal some of the books and head back to the house. Outside, Gail confesses to Barbie her relationship with their historical nemesis, Sherlock Frankenstein

Back at the bar, Lucy tries to find a way out, only to end up back at the bar. Frustrated, she threatens James the bartender, who dismisses the rest of the bar's inhabitants. He leads Lucy through a door to hell and abandons her, returning back through the doorway. Lucy meets Jack Sabbath, a floating corpse? She's also confronted by a gigantic demon, who says that James twice owes him his soul. The demon tries to bring up her father to taunt her, but she sees through this and begins destroying demons until the Big Demon gives her and Jack a doorway out of there.

Abe meets with Tammy to see if she has any information, but they are interrupted by the sudden return of Tammy's vindictive ex, Earl Trueheart. However, Earl wishes them nothing but luck and gives his blessing. Everyone is confused. Barbie goes to see the priest and says that he will wait for when he's ready. Suddenly, magically, the priest is ready and they kiss. Things seem to be lining up perfectly for everyone! Meanwhile, we see Madame Dragonfly and Colonel Weird speaking together. Colonel Weird is concerned that everything is slipping out of control and Madame Dragonfly says that Colonel Weird needs to pull it together.

Lucy ends up in Storyland (which seems to be a riff on Gaiman's Sandman comics (No. 1 being: [b:Preludes & Nocturnes|23754|Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411609637s/23754.jpg|1228437]). Their greeter invites them to dinner where we meet his family: Time, a large man with a clock carved onto his face and a book chained to his back; Mystery, a thin woman; Romance, a person of indeterminate gender; and the Editor, who checks grammar? They speak for a time and I got the idea that they are just one reality of a myriad of possible stories that exist. Mystery opens a doorway for them. Jack and Lucy enter a world filled with stairs and hallways and doors. Doors everywhere. They try a few, which leads them into different world. Eventually, Lucy uses her father's hammer to lead her back to her world. Jack decides not to follow her, but says that they will team up in the future. Lucy steps through the doorway into Madame Dragonfly's cabin and confronts her.

Madame Dragonfly refuses to back down, using magic to pin Lucy against a wall. She says, that she is willing to kill Lucy if that's what it takes to keep everyone else alive. Meanwhile, Abe and Tammy rest together. Tammy says that she can feel Abe is hiding something from her and she needs to know what. Abe confesses everything to her, including changing into his superhero costume so she will believe him. Tammy laughs at the sight of him.

In the barn, Gail starts trying to reprogram Talky-Walky. She messes with some wires and suddenly Talky wakes up. She manages to get out that Dragonfly betrayed them all before short-circuiting again, but Gail has heard enough. On the porch, Abe and Barbie discuss their sudden good luck with their relationships. Barbie begins to talk about maybe staying at the farm, surprising Abe, since Barbie was all about leaving. As they talk, Gail explodes out of the barn, ready to confront Dragonfly. The three march off to see what's going on the cabin. Gail bangs in the door and they all see Madame Dragonfly holding Lucy against a wall. Madame Dragonfly releases Lucy and Lucy demands that she and Colonel Weird finally explain.

It is revealed that our heroes have been in stasis on a spaceship this entire time. They are all awaken. We see a flashback of Lucy's commitment to finding out what happened to them all after the defeat of Anti-God. She is approached by a researcher who had found Talky's probe. She also works with Doctor Star, another superhero, who had worked with her father previously. Doctor Star says that by following the probe's trajectory, using his special telescope, he can see a doorway in space. His superhero suit allowed him, in the past, to travel into the para-zone with Colonel Weird. He believes that it would work again and sends Lucy into the doorway. Lucy finds Madame Dragonfly's cabin and Colonel Weird's spaceship, eventually boarding the latter to find all of them in stasis. Colonel Weird further explains that, after the defeat of Anti-God, he spirited them all away here. The universe needs a balance, always, and, if they remained, Anti-God would return. By taking them into the para-zone, it prevents the reappearance of Anti-God. Black Hammer died, because he woke himself up and tried to travel into the para-zone without the proper protection, killing him. Talky, too, had started connecting with the ship's machinery and had to be stopped, otherwise she might have awaken herself and everyone else. Abe begins Madame Dragonfly to send him back, to return to Tammy, but Madame Dragonfly cannot bring that spell back. Even if she had the strength, the people wouldn't be the same.

Colonel Weird chimes in to say that he had reprogrammed the ship to take them all home. The comic ends with them passing back through the doorway.

shane_tiernan's review against another edition

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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.

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