Heroes Reborn: American Knights #1: Written by Paul Grist Art by Christopher Allen
Heroes Reborn: Marvel Double Action #1: Written by Tim Seeley Art by Dan Jurgens
Published by Marvel Comics
Look at that, more Heroes Reborn crossover tie-in books!
This week’s Heroes Reborn #5 main title focused on Nighthawk, Marvel’s Batman surrogate who gets extra shine here in a world where the Avengers never formed. So this week we get American Knights #1 and Marvel Double Action #1, both of them focusing on Nighthawk’s world and filling out more backstory that is referenced in the main title.
Marvel has used the tie-in books to dig deeper into this alternate timeline by creating an alternate publication history for Marvel Comics itself.
With American Knights #1, we get a variation on the Marvel Knights imprint of years ago, but in the current continuity of Heroes Reborn.
In this timeline, Luke Cage is commissioner of the Washington, D.C. Police Department. And he looks super badass in his flat cap, shades and trench that makes him look like my father and several of my friends. (That’s what happens when you hire Chris Allen, a Black artist.)
The issue is fairly straightforward, but it’s cool to see Cage still pushing a “message” title as a Black man who was wrongly convicted, was cleared, and then became a cop to undo the injustices that led to him being arrested. That’s a fantasy world I wouldn’t mind seeing more of, someone empowered to clean up the police the way Cage can. Sometimes with his fists if need be.
It’s hard enough for a Jim Gordon. Imagine doing it as Luke Cage. And this version ain’t bulletproof!
Marvel Double Action #1, on the other hand, is a big honkin’ double issue the likes of which you’d see in the 1970s or early 1980s.
And they reached into the true-blue bag by bringing on Dan Jurgens and Scott Hanna to handle the art. Jurgens draws this book less like you’d remember him from his ‘90s Superman apex, and more like he were Jim Aparo or Gene Colan.
And it works.
I miss when comic books looked like comic books – I mean, something primarily made for children, with big colors and huge poses but still somewhat believable anatomy.
Even if this issue represents the more socially conscious and teen-leaning era of comics storytelling brought on by the likes of Dennis O’Neill and Chris Claremont – the kids who grew up on comics and wanted them to grow up with them. But before it all went out of control.
In a world without Spider-Man, Nighthawk gets a lot of his villains, including Norman Osborn as the Goblin. Here, we get the landmark issue when Sam “Falcon” Wilson dies just as Gwen Stacy had in our regular lore.
Read these all the way through for some more details in this alt-reality that will knock your socks off. Especially the mailbag at the end of the double issue.
