Danger Street vol. 2
The efforts of two heroes trying to redeem themselves by finding a way to bring a boy that died because of their actions is just the tip of the iceberg for this maxiseries. In addition to the story of Warlord and Mikaal “Starman” Tomas, you’ve got Manhunter trying to track down the remaining teenage billionaires of the Green Team and facing off against their hired hand Codename Assassin in the process. There’s Lady Cop investigating the kid’s death, which leads her to the Green Team’s headquarters, and has her crossing paths with their spokesperson Jack Ryder who is also the super… er, metahuman known as the Creeper. You also have the Dingbats dealing with the loss of their friend in their own way, the teen mutants of the Outsiders dealing with the bad hand that’s been dealt to them as they’re drawn into these events, and the New Gods as well. Who, I might add, are trying to stop the sky from falling and crushing the entire universe in the process.
I described the first volume of this latest maxiseries from writer Tom King as “‘Magnolia’ But With Superheroes” and I still feel that sums up the final product well enough. It has a large cast of distinct characters each with their own storylines and agendas who cross paths with each other over the course of the story, even as the movie resists tying everything together as this comic does in the end. To that movie’s benefit, however, as I’m still not quite sure what the writer was trying to achieve here.
If it was to take a bunch of random and minor characters who debuted at DC Comics in the 70’s and see if he could tell a story involving them all, then Mission Accomplished. This is certainly a story that they’re all in and whose stories intersect over the course of it, yet it doesn’t really come together until the last few issues. Before then, it feels like King is indulging his love of digging up obscure characters, waxing poetic about philosophical ideas, and showing off his love of formalism with artist Jorge Fornes.
That can be interesting, but I’m left with the feeling that he’s done this stuff better in “Mister Miracle,” which is increasingly looking like the high point of the writer’s maxiseries output. Sure, stunts like seeing Manhunter and Assassin debate the finer points of probability and fate as they duel on a building’s rooftop in an issue made up of eight square parallel panels per page for the whole thing is neat in concept. In execution it wears out its welcome well before its end.
Not everything is like that, and I will admit it’s nice to see things come together in the end. Everyone winds up with what they deserve, and the deserving are set up to have more adventures after the end of this story. Fornes’ art is still nice to look at here, what with his versatility in drawing all kinds of characters and the many varied, but mostly grounded, settings this story takes place in. His characters emote as well as ever, even as it’s the exasperation which Lady Cop constantly feels which resonates the most with me.
Maybe that’s because I’m not sure what I was supposed to get from this story in the end. King offers up a handy-dandy moral in the final panel as an obvious takeaway. Yet it really feels like he was just showing off about how he and Fornes were able to build this big, character-driven, pseudo-epic around minor characters that have cult followings, if they have any at all. “There are no bad characters, only bad writers,” is a phrase that has been brought up time and time again in regards to the comics industry and it’s something I believe in. I just can’t quite feel that King and Fornes have provided the best example of that with “Danger Street.”