Written by Karl Bollers
Art by Rick Leonardi, Larry Stroman,
Created by Brandon Perlow & Paul Mendoza
Cover by Khary Randolph
Published by Fairsquare Comics LLC
As a kid growing up in Brooklyn’s Sumner houses during the 70s and 80s, I would often reimagine my favorite white heroes as black people. Not only black people, but black folks existing in the modern world.
Subsequently, I would fantasize about black versions of Robin Hood and his Merry Men fighting the Wicked Sheriff of Bushwick. Or King Arthur and his Knights of the round table being a multi-ethnic crew having adventures in the distant future, á la DC’s Camelot 3000.
Karl Bollers takes my childhood fantasy and ratchets it to the Nth degree, reimagining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as black men living in modern-day Harlem.
Watson is an Afghan war vet working in an inner-city clinic, and Holmes is a local private eye known for taking on unusual cases.
When one of Holmes’ cases ends up in Watson’s emergency room, the pair strike up a partnership to find a missing girl. Watson and Holmes bump heads along the way as they enter a labyrinth of drugs, guns, gangs, and a conspiracy that goes higher and more profound than they could have imagined.
I wanted to like this book more, and it is fun, but the writing is inconsistent, and the plot and purpose of the story both get lost at some point. The art is uneven because of the various talents working on each book in the collection.
Nevertheless, each artist captures the tone of the book and Watson and Holmes never look different enough that it becomes jarring or unsettling.
However, this is one of those series that, once it hits its stride I am sure it will be almost perfect.
4 out of 5 stars
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