Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Colton Worley
Colourist: Morgan Hickman
Release date: 17 June 2015
Price: $3.99

 

If you’re a Warren Ellis comic book character, life is never going to be very simple. People are not who they thought they were, and what they experience can only be labelled as surreal. You get a taste from the very first panel of Superpowers: Blackcross #4. “Shut up. I’ve never had to dispose of a body before.” The speaker is a goofy pharmacist who was possessed by something terrible.

The pharmacist joined by a haunted woman just to balance things out! In a mirror she encounters the hero the Woman in Red. “I’m not a hallucination. I’m a ghost,” says the reflection. And then in a dreamlike sequence the pharmacist and the haunted woman, attempting to dispose of the body encounter a human torch, and the woman talks him into flaming off. The flamer in turn rambles about there being another him running around, and a voice in his head told him to embrace electrical fire. Slowly the dream players reveal themselves.

To remind the reader that a real, grounded world exists the scene shifts to a police station where the chief of police is having a bad day. Ellis’s dialogue is up to its usual high standards. An officer jokes about bringing the chief coffee with a shotgun or cyanide, the chief responds, ‘If you could load the cyanide into the shotgun, that’d be great.’

The best way to describe Colton Worley’s art is dark, borderline black. The artwork fits the story’s dreamy quality. Worley takes chances. Some panels are so obscured it is hard to see what’s going on. Colorist Hickman follows the lead, using dark browns and toned down purples.

Reading Project Superpowers: Blackcross #4 really makes one want to go back and read the first three issues, and, of course, the next issue and the issue after the next issue too. And that, I would argue, is the hallmark of a great comic book.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker