Black Hammer: Secret Origins

Black Hammer, Vol. 1: Secret Origins by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spiral City's seven greatest heroes disappeared in battle ten years ago and awoke in a small town they couldn't leave. Will they ever find their way back home?

I've been hearing about Black Hammer for the last couple years and finally decided to give it a shot. I wish I would have been on board at the very beginning because this is some good shit.

Basically, analogues of Captain America, Mary Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Adam Strange/Captain Comet, Madame Xanadu, and Robby the Robot from Lost in Space are stranded in a bizarre town and unable to leave. Black Hammer, the Thor analogue of the group, has vanished. When the book begins, they've been stranded for ten years.

This omnibus introduces the heroes and their plight. Abraham Slam, the Captain America analogue, spends his days working on the farm and pining over Tammy Trueheart, the waitress at the local diner. Golden Gail is a seventy year old in the body of a super powered nine year old girl. Barbalien struggles with being an alien outsider and also being gay. Madam Dragonfly keeps herself apart from the rest of the family at her mysterious cabin. Talky-Walky, the robot, resents being the housekeeper and will probably snap sometime in the future. And Colonel Weird spends most of his time muttering and going in and out of the para-zone, the bizarre space between dimensions.

Most of the characters have origin stories in this volume. Much like Astro City, Vol. 1: Life in the Big City, there's a tremendous sense of history to the universe Lemire has created, like there's a stack of old Black Hammer comics in a musty basement someplace I've never read.

Dean Ormston's art has a moody, gloomy feel, perfect for a book depicting super heroes trapped in a town they can't escape. The town's origin is hinted at and possible salvation arrives only to have its legs cut out from under it.

Black Hammer: Secret Origins has whet my whistle for the rest of the series. If you're into super hero stories that are more than guys in spandex punching each other, give it a read. Four out of five stars.

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