The Black Hammer saga continues in Black Hammer: Spiral City #1, written by Jeff Lemire with art by Teddy Kristiansen. Have you been wanting to try the Black Hammer books but were intimidated by the plethora of series and miniseries that have come out the past few years? No worries, this issue is the perfect introductory book, beginning with a short backstory of the universe that gives you all the information you need to know to dive in.
As the issue opens, Spiral City couldn’t be bleaker. It’s blanketed in darkness, despair and poverty. Something’s causing the oppressive decline of the city, but what? Never fear, Inspector Insector (love that name!) is on the case!
The brilliant thing about the Black Hammer universe is that you can do any genre of story in it. Horror, pure superhero action, sci-fi, noir, etc., any type of story is doable within the vast Black Hammer universe.
Here, we get the beginning of a great film noir-style tale with a bit of the supernatural mixed in. Inspector Insector is a gumshoe straight out of a 1940s film. His character design is flawless, with his insectoid/ant-like cranium and four appendages all decked out in a trench coat and Fedora hat that makes him look like a bizarre alien version of Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade from “The Maltese Falcon”. He’s the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Detective (take that Batman!) and he’s hungry to work on a new case.
Dark Horse
We follow him through the bulk of the issue as he wanders the alleys and seedy areas of Spiral City, trying to find detective work and encountering equally fascinating characters (some of whom are homeless and living on the street) along the way.
It’s a great way to introduce us to the current state of Spiral City and it makes the crime-ridden hellscape of Gotham City look like Xanadu by comparison. We see all the remnants of a once-great city here through Insector’s eyes as he walks through torn chain-link fences and strolls by one abandoned building after another. Despite the doom and gloom of the setting, I really enjoyed just following Inspector Insector through the city and reading his musings.
To say that the book echoes what we’re experiencing here in the real world is an understatement. Spiral City’s divided between those who support the superheroes of the past and those who consider them menaces. There are frequent protests, raging gentrification, the tearing down of statues in an attempt to bury the past and an out-of-control S.H.I.E.L.D.-style organization doing some strange things with former supervillains.
My only complaint is that the book is a bit TOO dark, which is why I like Insector so much, because no matter what he runs into, no matter how empty his pockets get or how much the brutal security of Spiral City give him a rough time, he still holds on to a nugget of optimism and good will towards others.
Few people are better at creating stories and new characters than Jeff Lemire, his imagination seems boundless. Two characters that Insector meets this issue are visually stunning and I’d love to see more of them, but they unfortunately just seem to be throwaways. No worries, though – no doubt there are a lot of other great characters (and plot twists) on the horizon.
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