| Hand of the Morningstar |
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| Posted by Kris Bather |
09:39 AM Wednesday, 09 January 2008 |
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 Forgive me Lord! He proved me wrong, and I'm thankful. When I first saw this series - (superheroes, Christian publisher) I had my doubts for some reason, I must say. But these two books, Advent and Resurrection are good. Very good in fact. Launching from Zondervan, one of the biggest Christian publishers, and their new graphic novels imprint, Hand of the Morningstar is one of a barrage of all ages titles. Zondervan haven't skimped on the details in producing these two books. Of course, the two most important details of any comic are the writer and artist. Both Mike Miller (Marvel's The Hedge Knight, Alias' Lullaby) and Brett Burner worked on the story, while Miller goes it alone on the art duties. Both men have been in the industry long enough to know what makes a good story, which involves a band of archetypal superheroes doing good deeds led by someone known only as Morningstar. These five heroes, including Titan the leader, Avatar, Kwan Yin, Kami and Shango see themselves as individual fingers, thus the title, Hand of the Morningstar. It begins with the US President unveiling his new machines in the war on terror - ED209-like constructs, which then go haywire before Titan can bust in and save the day (if not the machines.)
Mr Artemis is the man the Hand report to. He appears to be just a man in a suit, but like so much else in this story, there is more to him than there appears. I was pleasantly taken aback as I read through these 2 volumes, in one sitting no less, at how much took me by genuine surprise. I've been reading superheroes from The Big Two for 15 years and am accustomed to deaths, betrayals and resurrections on a monthly basis, but Miller and Burner wisely let the reader on in a few secrets at a time. It is a page turner and it's obvious that this series has a few more aces up its sleeve yet. There is a great sequence in which Tempest is reading the Bible as the words come alive. Jesus has never looked so heroic! To some, this may come across as not too subtle but it contains the gospel message beautifully and I actually found the choice of verses quite moving. There's something in these digests for comics fans, Christians and those that are both or neither. There were two grammatical errors (I think my mutant power is to detect these easily - apart from my own, of course!) and my copy of Volume 1 is missing some of the epilogue, meaning the ending made no sense, but this is a minor quibble, as it is available on the generously well designed web site dedicated to this line of books, which also includes cool trailers and galleries.
I won't spoil any twists for you, but these two volumes honestly did captivate me. The third volume, Confession, is out next month, but it's well worth your time to invest in these two adventurous books first. |
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Miller's black and white art is straight forward, but far from bland. He knows what he's doing. Like watching an engrossing film and not even noticing you're reading
subtitles, I didn't even click that the great art wasn't filled with
garish colours. There's plenty of action in the story for him to litter each book with power packed fight scenes and buckets of energetic splash pages. The expressions are spot-on, and sometimes the reactions are downright funny. This helps to compliment the script perfectly. Though we've seen these types of characters before - the strong leader, the quiet mystic, the token female, each character shines in their own way, from their simple costumes to their speech and reactions. Titan is the main character in Volume 1, with the focus shifting to kinda-baddie Tempest in Volume 2, as he recuperates physically and spiritually, with some help from some missionaries.
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