Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Dean Ormston
Colourist: Dave Stewart
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

Old heroes never die; they just fade away.

Or, in the case of Black Hammer #2, the Golden Age Heroes of Spiral City, they get shuffled off to another dimension to live out their endless days in a rural idyll. But that’s no way for heroes to live and after several attempts to escape back to the real world, only the Black Hammer seems to have made it.

In Black Hammer #2: The Curse of Zafram, we meet Gail Gibbons aka Golden Gail and learn about how she got her powers back in the good old days before zapping up to date to the never ending cycle of childhood that comprises the benevolent prison Gail and her companions are now confined to. When a fifty-five-year-old woman is trapped in the body of a nine-year-old girl and is forced to go through the first day of school over and over again for all eternity, that really is a fate worse than death! Have the villains finally won? Did Black Hammer survive his escape attempt? Will Gail ever graduate fourth grade?

Only time will tell. Gail herself is a Shazam clone but I’m guessing that’s intentional. The Golden Age segments of Black Hammer #2 reek of authenticity so familiar you could almost swear you had seen them before and the frustration of the confined heroes who have no way of knowing what’s going on back in their own reality is palpable.

Although Black Hammer himself doesn’t appear in Black Hammer #2 there are heroes and villains aplenty to keep us occupied. Nostalgia for the now generation, Black Hammer is a title that crosses all boundaries with a concept that is as original as tomorrow and as familiar as yesterday.

The Golden Age has come again! Enjoy!

 

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker