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Francesco Francavilla’s ‘THE BLACK BEETLE’ Takes a Walk on The Cosmic Treadmill

Can a review come out in December and not be a gift suggestion?

Probably not! We do the cool down lap on the Cosmic Treadmill this year with our favorite short run series of the year, Francesco Francavilla’s breakout pulp hit Black Beetle Volume 1:No Way Out from Dark Horse Comics.

Francavilla’s composition, colors, and ink brush line work complement his own script–drawing influences from noir film to The Shadow and Batman.

Our hero looks cool, has steampunk weapons and is 100% creator owned and original. The hardcover version serves as a great gift, even for yourself as a sort of ‘reward’ for how generous you have been this season!

The book starts out with the long out of print One Shot – Black Beetle: Night Shift. I read this volume first in issues as No Way Out #1-4, kicking myself for missing a hard copy of the one-shot and issue #1 when I heard the buzz. The precursor to the main series hits hard with Nazis seeking a lizard amulet, a strong female doctor in a museum and hiding in a sarcophagus. It was clear to me that this was the beginning of a larger world with exciting consequences as we enter Colt City — the home base of the mysterious Black Beetle.

No Way Out was a welcome second read through for me. Chapters 1-4 show Francavilla’s expert page layout and what Darwyn Cooke describes as ‘Tempo’ in his introduction to the book. Like Steranko and J.H. Williams, breaking the panel walls with Beetle Eye frames instead of the two circles of a binocular, the way he makes your eye dance across the page effortlessly showing action and dialogue sequences is superb.  

The palette chosen is that of heavy blacks, reds, oranges, grays and yellows. Not your typical four-color superhero fare, nor will you find many actual flesh tones. The coloring sets you not in a Dick Tracy: The Motion Picture setting, but rather a world illuminated by flames, by candlelight or torchlight.

The Black Beetle is one cool looking hero, and his googles match the red reflections on his winged cape. You know how that Batman cape scallops like batwings? The Black Beetle has wings instead! He’s a bad lookin’ dude with cool gadgets like a steam powered helicopter jetpack (stolen from the Germans, of course)!

Chapter 2 introduces the villain, Labirynto with his head to toe skintight yellow maze suit and a trap for our hero. You can hear the horns of a Republic Serial soundtrack at the end, as it looks like Black Beetle may be done for!

By the time we get to Chapter 3, we see our hero’s unmasked face for the first time — but Francavilla keeps it a secret by shading the face in a fedora and with lighting! But is it a cunning rubber mask like a civilian Snake-Eyes or Colt City’s Matches Malone? We’ll never know.

The final installment of No Way Out features all of the pulp payoff building up in this story. Everyone from the Mob to the Nazis have shown up, and our brilliant vigilante detective is determined to take down Labirynto!

Dark Horse’s hardcover features nearly 20 pages of fascinating back matter including original character designs as far back as 2006, The Black Beetle Lobby cards, Colt City municipal logos, and ray guns.

WCCR is Colt City Radio, he even designed a microphone for the jock there. It is not required, but cupping your ear and talking in a high pitched voice works well for speaking the captions of this amazing, self-described Super-Noir tale!

We’ve got a new protector in town — The Black Beetle!

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