Reviewed Apr 13, 06

THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN #1 of 6 (DC Comics), by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Dan Jurgens

In the wake of the Infinite Crisis, the city of Bludhaven’s been reduced to a chemically poisonous hot zone. The US military has built a wall around the city, keeping those who once lived there from getting in, and…something from getting out.

Four different factions have their sites set on the city, all for different reasons. The Society (of Supervillains, though nobody ever calls them that anymore. It’s sort of like the way the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants took the “Evil” out of their name--it does rather tend to paint one’s organization in a negative light, I suppose) believe there’s a potential weapon within the city, and regularly send squads of villains in to try and locate it. These villains are invariably dealt with by the patriotic-themed superteam, Freedom’s Ring, who’re tasked with “tagging and bagging” any metahumans who breach the city’s defenses. Outside the city, Bludhaven’s former inhabitants are running low on supplies and growing anxious to return to their homes. Led by new super-powered social activist Firebrand, they’re on the edge of taking violent action. And inside the city itself is a mysterious group of armoured figures who seemingly appear and disappear at will, whose origin, loyalties, and purpose is a mystery.

An unprovoked terrorist attack on an urban population recalls 9/11. The plight of the Bludhaven’s former inhabitants evokes that of New Orleans’ displaced population. The growing distrust of the citizenry for its government and military to some degree reflects the current political climate of the United States. A chemically poisoned environment seems more and more likely every day (in fact, I’m reasonably sure there’s a few of them already, though nothing on the scale of a city. Yet.) THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN has all the elements necessary to create a cutting-edge, ultra-modern comic book.

So why is it far and away the most retro feeling DC comic book the company’s put out since the Infinite Crisis began?

Is it the set of characters the creators have been given to work with? Almost all of them have some connection to the DC of the 1980’s or earlier. The original Firebrand was, I believe, a female character in Roy Thomas’ WWII hero book ALL-STAR SQUADRON. The Force of July--one of my all-time favourite superteam names, changed to Freedom’s Ring for no good reason--was introduced in a BATMAN & THE OUTSIDERS annual. A nuclear-themed group of supervillains might have been introduced in the nineties or later, I suppose, but given the costume designs, I kind of doubt it. And then there’s the characters at the heart of the issues’ big reveal, which I won’t spoil for anyone who’s looking to read this issue. Suffice it to say that if you weren’t reading comics 1984, and even then had some working knowledge of even older, more obscure characters, well, the reveal won’t mean a whole lot to you.

But characters have been re-envisioned successfully before--usually by placing them in new and more modern contexts, like those this series is built around.

Maybe it’s the writers’ fault. There’s a certain stilted quality to the dialogue--people in simple conversations talk with a formality that would only be found in a rehearsed speech. Much of what they say is comic-booky in the worst sense of the term, with characters explaining things for no reason other than to fill the readers in on what’s going on or, more often than not, what went on in books published many years ago. It’s clumsy storytelling, poor characterization, and Exhibit A for those looking to demonstrate comics are strictly a children’s medium.

If the writers are at fault, then the editor, Tom Palmer, Jr. must also be partly to blame, and I think he is--not just for allowing the worst of the writing to see print, but also for selecting Dan Jurgens as this series’ artist. A product of the nineties, Jurgens’ workmanlike style tells the story, but does so with little panache. THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN’s art reminds me of nothing so much as Jim Aparo’s later work--it gets the job done, and nothing more. Put next to the work of Ivan Reis, Jesus Saiz, and other artists working on post-Crisis projects, it comes across as woefully outdated.

GET TO THE POINT, FOLEY: Up till now, DC hasn’t made many missteps with Infinite Crisis and its follow-ups. But, unlike the forward-looking books I’ve come across so far, THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN looks and reads like an artifact of a bygone comic era. If you enjoy the comics and storytelling of the eighties for something beyond mere nostalgia, then you might enjoy this. I grew up on those books, but they don’t offer me much anymore. Unfortunately, neither does this. C-.