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A review by hypops
Hardware: The Man in the Machine by J.J. Birch, Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan
5.0
A criminally under-appreciated superhero comic by a criminally under-appreciated creative team for a criminally under-appreciated publishing imprint.
More than any prior attempts by the big two comics publishers to develop books about non-white characters by non-white creators, Hardware and its peers at Milestone Media (Icon, Static, etc.) set a new standard for how mainstream comics tell stories and who they’re about.
The first issue is one of the strongest (if not *the* strongest outright) first issues of any superhero book I have read. The character of Hardware/Curtis Metcalf blends Batman, Iron Man, and African-American coming-of-age fiction. The art similarly blends the spectacle of superhero stories with the aesthetic touches of art cinema and literary fiction. The combination makes for one of the sharpest revisionist takes on superhero comics, one that has had an arguably bigger and more pervasive impact on present-day superhero comics than any of the higher-profile revisionist superhero books (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Man of Steel, etc.).
Needless to say, I was super stoked to find this out-of-print trade collection of the first eight issues at a local shop. The full run is long overdue for trade reprints.
More than any prior attempts by the big two comics publishers to develop books about non-white characters by non-white creators, Hardware and its peers at Milestone Media (Icon, Static, etc.) set a new standard for how mainstream comics tell stories and who they’re about.
The first issue is one of the strongest (if not *the* strongest outright) first issues of any superhero book I have read. The character of Hardware/Curtis Metcalf blends Batman, Iron Man, and African-American coming-of-age fiction. The art similarly blends the spectacle of superhero stories with the aesthetic touches of art cinema and literary fiction. The combination makes for one of the sharpest revisionist takes on superhero comics, one that has had an arguably bigger and more pervasive impact on present-day superhero comics than any of the higher-profile revisionist superhero books (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, The Man of Steel, etc.).
Needless to say, I was super stoked to find this out-of-print trade collection of the first eight issues at a local shop. The full run is long overdue for trade reprints.