Welcome to the First Issue Bin, where I — Ethan Kaye — randomly grab one of this week's comics that’s just starting up and give you the details on whether it should get added to your collection … or remain on the comic shop shelf.
Mr. Terrific: Year One #1
Writer: Al Letson
Artist: Valentine De Landro, Edwin Galmon
Color Artist: Marissa Louise, Edwin Galmon
Letterer: Lucas Gattoni
Editor: Andrea Shea, Marquis Draper
Once you take a second-tier legacy superhero character, strip him of his costume and the teams he identifies with, and remove his supporting cast and entire world of fellow heroes, what do you get? Well, with DC's Mr. Terrific: Year One #1, you get a seriously engaging, mature, relevant origin story.
Mr. Terrific has been a presence in DC Comics since 1942, but it wasn't until 1997's The Spectre #57 that we saw the latest incarnation, genius inventor Michael Holt. Holt's been slowly moving up the ranks in the DC hero hierarchy, from a spot in the Justice Society of America to his own team, The Terrifics, to now running the Justice League's Watchtower base. As the "world's third smartest man," he's the character everyone runs to when they need science stuff done (check him out in recent issues of The Flash). And with his big screen debut slotted for this July's Superman (played by Edi Gathegi), the time is right to formally tell his origin story.
And I gotta say, Al Letson is the voice to tell this story. Letson's fairly fresh to DC comics, but his writing and performance resume is vast, including Peabody Award-winning podcasts State of the Re:Union and Reveal. (Letson also contributed a story to DC's New Talent Showcase 2017, and worked on the creator-owned Kickstarter comics Imperfect and Planetfall) Artist Valentine De Landro and Marissa Louise handle most of the art, with Edwin Galmon starting things off with three pages of current-day introduction.
Michael Holt has always carried the ghost of his dead wife with him, figuratively, but this origin story doesn't delve deep into those events. Instead, it shows us what happens after, where an unfocused genius finds himself unmotivated, unmoored, and unhappy. He doesn't get out of bed. He relies on his brother, Dre, to come by to cook food. His great inventions are half-finished. Things are bad at the Holt house.
And they're just as bad outside of it. Cold industrialist Athena Prescott has purchased Holt's ultra-efficient power generator technology and set it up within Gateway City, but her own additions have caused what could have been a revolution in energy production into an illness-causing plague. Michael's unmotivated to take action (also prevented legally) so Dre goes off on his own to wreak some havoc. Things go south when Batgirl villain Cormorant shows up at Prescott Tower, and now I'm eagerly awaiting issue two.
There's such a strong story structure in Mr. Terrific: Year One #1, which should come as no surprise given Letson's playwriting track record. Scenes are perfectly paced, backstory is given in appropriate doses, villains get to the point and don't overplay their roles. All too often we identify a comic story as "good" by the twist endings they give us or the unexpected cameos that come in to save the day, but this is a story that stands tall upon the craft of narrative and the author's writing chops. There aren't cosmic heroes trading punches, and the one costumed villain, Cormorant, only gets six panels total. It's just a story that sets the stakes, shows us the characters, and lets them play out.
And that's not to say there's no action. Dre's incursion into Prescott Tower is all fights and lightshow, and it serves as the issue's climax. De Landro's art is a good fit for a book that turns up the intensity when needed, but is just as adept at showing the Holts at home or Prescott at a Gateway City council meeting. Letson's script lets the talky moments flow naturally and in a way that gets us feeling for the characters, while ramping up the energy when it's needed. There's a feeling of anxiety and uncertainty for the future behind every panel, a mix of dread and high hopes, that keeps this superhero story firmly planted in realistic emotional stakes. If you're a fan of Gotham Central, this book is the spiritual successor.
Legitimately, this book surprised me. Mr. Terrific is a fine character, but rarely carries a story on his own (he did have his own eight-issue book in 2011). In fact, it's fair to say that he's not Mr. Terrific in this one, but he's somehow more engaging a character. All too often Michael Holt is shown as this infallible smartypants, his only conflicts arising from problems he struggles to solve due to lack of data (see the recent Challengers of the Unknown mini for more of this). Here, he struggles with his wife's passing, his brother's tech start-up, his conflicts with the evil powers who bought him out. They're relatable obstacles for the common man, rather than battling Darkseid in space. Letson hasn't lost the trees for the forest.
Pacing: 5/5
All-out action: 3/5
Relatability: 5/5
Supervillains: 2/5, and that's okay
Frustrated genius in action: 5/5
Verdict: I know Letson is busy with other projects, but if Mr. Terrific: Year One #1 is any indication, he'd be a monster of a regular comic writer. Pick this one up. You'll be happy you did.
