Midnighter and Apollo #6: A Review

DC Comics
Midnighter and Apollo #6: A Review
By Zak Edwards
March 3, 2017 - 19:35

DC Comics
Writer(s): Steve Orlando
Artist(s): Fernando Blanco
Penciller(s): Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
Letterer(s): Josh Reed

I have two confessions. One, I haven’t read Midnighter or Apollo books since Millar’s run on The Authority. Two, I haven’t read much of this series, either.

Opening onto a page where Midnighter’s getting the crap kicked out of him in Hell, by Hell, was quite the shock. It was like missing a season of TV and they’ve leaned hard into a new concept, like that time travel season of Felicity or when Mad Men was still about the ads. But when the original concept has been done to death, like The Authority’s “widescreen” superheroics or Parks & Recreation being a little too much like The Office at its outset, it’s time for something new that becomes something new, different and more itself.

The Authority was about superheroes being super violent and what that means. It was a big, loud Watchmen derivation. If Rorschach was Batman but poor, Midnighter was Batman if he murdered. Apollo, too, was a Sun God, like Superman before but with a penchant for “doing what it takes.” They were a couple, just like the internet wished for their originals, and then their publisher went through some stuff and they were gone.

When they reappeared, it was Midnighter at the forefront, audacious and proud, and, from what I can tell from everyone who read it, it clicked. It went from Leslie Knope, Michael Scott surrogate, to Leslie Knope, full stop. And here, I get the absolute pleasure of seeing a story about two crazy powerful men who love each other come to a beautiful, sentimental conclusion. That, almost more so than the Hell intro, surprised me and it has me already ordering Midnighter to get the full story.

The original concept for the series from which these characters come could not hold this kind of story. It was cynical and snide with cynical, snide characters. Here, we have those characters, still cynical and snide, but in a world that can tell more of their story. And it’s beautiful.

tl; dr review: Wondrous.