Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Dark days the Casting #1

By Paul Mason
July 16, 2017 - 22:29

*Sings* “You're a rock star, you're an all star, so get your groove on oh hey” I’m sure I mangled the lyrics but I was trying to sing the 90s hit All Star by Smashmouth to the creators. As I mentioned in my review for The Forge, DC has an all star team of creators working on this series.
And it shows.

Again this issue opens with an internal monologue, or excerpts from Hawkman's journal talking about the same mysterious metal Batman has been investigating. Then there’s a jump cut to the confrontation in the batcave between Duke, Green Lantern and the Joker. During this fight(?) Joker makes a lot of cryptic comments that the heroes seem to mostly brush off to the clown prince of crime's insanity. Which on the surface is a detail easily overlooked as following the comic book trope of Joker being crazy so he is going to spout nonsense whilst confronted by heroes. Yet Half and Duke have an uneasy feeling because while they don’t understand what Joker is talking about it is clear something is going on which makes them very uneasy. And here I want to give credit to the depth of writing Snyder and Tynion are imbuing this series with because often if people speak truth others don’t understand they are labeled as crazy. This has been amply demonstrated since the Oracle Cassandra. It just happens, in this case, the one spouting truth Is crazy.

Through out this issue the narrative switches from Hawkman's historical perspective and Batman's investigation in the present day smoothly.

There is a lot of exposition, and a minimal amount of action in this comic, yet there is so much going on I am not going to complain about that. Basically for an oversize comic I finished still wanting more which I think a set up or prequel is supposed to do to you.

The artists are established and renown. It looks great with each artist leaving their distinctive style marking significant scenes.

Rating: 8.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12