This week: DC Comics is ringing the bell on its big fall event, DC KO! Plus, Supergirl and Superman: Kryptonite Spectrum are two great books that bring some fun variety to the Man of Steel titles.
Note: the review below may contain spoilers. If you want a quick, spoiler-free buy/pass recommendation on the comics in question, check out the bottom of the article for our final verdict.
DC KO #1
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Javier Fernandez with Xermanico
Colorist: Alejandro Sanchez
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
It’s round one of DC KO #1, and I kind of want to tap out. Which is my story-appropriate way of saying I struggled with the first chapter of DC’s big fall event. Now, I’m not going to write off an entire story based on part one (especially since I’ve enjoyed the build up to this), but this week’s opening did feel a little too complicated for an event that has been presented as big silly superhero fight tournament. To me, this comic tried to do way too much within the space of just a single issue, and as a result, the whole thing felt bogged down, even obligatory in places.
DC KO #1 also seemed like it wanted to make an argument for its own seriousness, as if it was trying to convince us there’s much more going on here than just a big superhero punch tournament. But here’s the thing friends…all I really wanted was a big superhero punch tournament. I don’t need Omega and Alpha Energies, nor do I really understand what those are, if I’m being totally honest.
The thing is that this event is scripted by Scott Snyder, who has given us the best big superhero punch book in a good long while with Absolute Batman. And, to be fair, we still might get a whole lot of fun out of DC KO. This first issue maybe just had too much setup to do in order to clear the decks for fight heavy chapters to come. In the space of its 44 pages, it does the following: gives us clarity on the threat that Darkseid poses to existence, wraps in the Time Trapper-Booster Gold business with the wider DCU, delivers a way that the heroes might stop Darkseid — by winning a tournament to obtain power on his level, gets a bunch of villains involved, takes Shazam! off the board, impales Batman for good measure, references the New 52’s continuity reboot for some reason, and then tells us that within the hero’s ranks there is a spy (which our own Joe Grunenwald immediately convinced me was Booster Gold).
I think the final thing that made it a little too much for me, though, was that the issue was being heavily narrated…by the Heart of Apokolips. Which is apparently a thing, and a thing that sounds like it has a graduate degree in English, at that.
Simply put, the main reason I struggled with this first issue is it felt to me like they did way too much.
That said, I’m hopeful I’ll enjoy subsequent issues more. I really liked the setup down in the Superman main title, and that book’s writer, Joshua Williamson, is co-plotting this event, as well as writing tie-in titles. I also thought that DC KO went out of its way to deliver hyper-stylized art, colors, and lettering that would set this book apart from past events, and that’s a very cool move.
The artwork in the book is primarily by Javi Fernandez, with an interlude by Xermanico, and it’s colored by Alejandro Sanchez. The linework is sharp and kinetic, and it does a great job of handling the book’s huge cast, with a 32-panel spread of the tournament competitors that is particularly impressive. That’s not the only memorable spread in the book either. Fernandez makes some bold layout choices that almost feel evocative of a child’s boardgame, which fits the big tournament motif perfectly. I really dug those.
But it’s Sanchez’s color work that I think really makes this event’s visual language unique. I would characterize it as sharp, sci-fi neon, and it especially comes alive in any sequence where there is big Darkseid or DCU nonsense in play (your Omega energies, your Skartaris Nexus, etc.). The colors, meanwhile, are grounded in the Earth sequences, yet they quickly bounce back to outlandish once the high-concept hijinks start in earnest. The coloring alone almost lets you know you’re reading something different than a standard DCU mainline comic. Almost.
I say that because Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou also really cuts loose with distinct lettering in this book, at least as big ticket superhero comics go. I don’t know how to articulate it better than saying the lettering here almost feels post-modern, so over-the-top that it reaches new spaces with a superhero event. I found it a little distracting at first, but by the end of the first issue, I rather appreciated the creative work to set this comic apart (which started with the design of its cover, although that might have been Fernandez who conceptualized that).
The only other thing I have to say about this comic — and I might be alone here — is that I’m not feeling the whole Superman fighting with brass knuckles that have suns inside thing. I’m going to get very stereotypical superhero fan here…but if Superman can gain access to miniature suns, why wouldn’t he just be strapping those to his torso and using them as an infinite healing/power system? What’s the advantage there of putting them in the knuckles specifically. I don’t get it–you know what, I think I’ve run my course with this week’s column.
See you back here for round two!
The Round-Up
- I don’t have a ton of bandwidth this week to dive deep into the week’s other releases (NYCC prep beckons), but I did want to note that books like Supergirl #6 and Superman: Kryptonite Spectrum #3, are perfect examples of how varied and interesting Superman comics can be when creatives and editorial think just a little outside the box.With this entire Supergirl run, writer/artist Sophie Campbell is delivering a fun, Silver Age-homaging take on the Maiden of Might, all with its own fresh voice. The result is a breezy and interesting title that stands apart from not just the other Superman books, but the rest of DC’s line as a whole. Campbell is joined on the book by always-great letterer Becca Carey, who is one of the best letterers in comics at matching the exact tone of the art and scripting.
With Superman: Kryptonite Spectrum, meanwhile, it feels like DC Comics editorial has set one of the best teams in indie comics — the Ice Cream Man guys: writer W. Maxwell Prince, artist Martin Morazzo, colorist Chris O’Halloran, and letter Good Old Neon — loose on Superman’s entire mythology. If you read Ice Cream Man, you know that team is expert at fostering and delivering upon new, interesting themes in individual issues, and they’re doing a great job in this book bringing it not just to Superman, but to the DCU as a whole.
To summarize: more books like Supergirl and Superman: Kryptonite Spectrum, please.
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