Comic Review: Black Hammer Library Edition Volume 1 (Dark Horse)

If you want a creepy treat, treat yourself to a read of the new Black Hammer Library Edition, Volume 1. It’s from Dark Horse.

This edition collects and reprints the first and second volumes of Black Hammer and Black Hammer: Giant Sized Annual in a deluxe hardcover.

It has a new cover, and is printed at larger dimensions than the original comic book, at 8″ x 12.375″.

Writer Jeff Lemire has constructed a fascinating and powerful storyline here. Essentially, it’s about old superheroes, banished from Spiral City, and living a life of ‘retirement and relocation’ on a rural farm. Their super abilities are still operable, but the rest of their existence is strange, realllly strange. With an emphasis on s t r a n g e. Multidimensionally strange, okay?

I’m really charmed and alarmed by the story of Black Hammer. It’s got everything going for it: the appeal of ‘fictional’ retro superheroes, the fact that these heroes are trapped in a world they never made, and the inkling that Lemire and his pack of artists (too numerous to mention here) are using a futuristic random idea generator to keep readers on their toes. Okay, I exaggerated there. Still… it is so weirdly wonderful, I don’t know where to start.

Simply thrilling reading, this shadowy series of creepy goodness is quite a wonderful volume.

Also included: sketches, cover roughs, black and white scans of the original art before colouring.

Dark Horse: Black Hammer Library Edition, Volume 1, $49.99 for 414 pages, Rated: 14 years