$9.95 from Dark Horse
Credits:
Story & Art by
John Byrne
Colors by Steve Oliff
John Byrne has always
struck me as an artist and writer of contradiction. Consider the work that Byrne did on Superman
in the mid-1980s: at that point not only had Byrne reinvigorated the Fantastic
Four over at marvel, but he also published a little-read essay on
Superman-- long before getting the DC job-- outlining Byrne's careful
considerations on how Superman’s powers functioned.
Byrne was the very
first writer to suggest that perhaps Superman's vast powers were in fact an
alien telekinetic power: Superman could fly because he was lifting
himself with his mind, and he could lift airplanes because he was lifting those
with his mind, too. The trick, Byrne
wrote, was that Superman was unaware that he had telekinesis and thought that
he had to touch everything to be able to lift it. You see how well this works? You see what a great trick this was? John Byrne, without even having the
assignment, came up with brilliantly ridiculous explanation just so you could
have Superman carrying gigantic objects, such as airliners, without them
falling apart around him.
And that to me is
just the sort of thing that John Byrne was always good at: telling and
retelling comic stories not with eye towards facts or
"modernization," but towards believability for a modern
audience that still wanted to thrill.
It's a careful
distinction I’m making. If Allen Moore
and Frank Miller were the New Wave, John Byrne was the constantly-modernizing
One of the things
that Byrne produced during one of his fickle periods was the independently-owned
Dark Horse title 2112. In 2112, John Byrne creates an entirely
new world set less than 200 years in our future. And it's a beautiful future, with everything
that you expect from John Byrne: lots of sprawling, continent-sized city backgrounds
and all those distinctive John Byrne cheekbones on the very lovely and
well-dressed denizens of the Earth of the future (for John Byrne the future of
Earth will have no second-class.)
well there is sort of
the second-class: the race of people called a halflings, genetic mutations who
are shipped off to an orbiting satellite prison moment airborne. Our hero is Thomas a young man who is just
graduated from the futuristic Safeguard police academy and finds himself
playing second banana to prime agent red, an iconoclastic is naturally the only
one who knows that the halflings are plotting a gigantic invasion.
All fairly common
science-fiction stuff. But what's
pleasant about 2112 are the touch is better so distinctly John Byrne that any
fan will be please. For one thing in
this is essentially John Byrne doing Jack Kirby: the city designs that exposes
juxtaposition of dinosaur is and stations, the costumes and my God the hair,
all look as if John Byrne sneaker for months as he can one I mind for use the new
gods and another eye on his own easel.
All look and feel just thrills; aside from the distinctly modern
references to sacks in the scattered profanity, this comic easily have issued
from the '60s.
In other words the
1992, John Byrne was added again answering question that perhaps no one really
needed to ask: I make the slick modern feeling homage to to the gee whiz
science-fiction comics of 1960s? Well
heck of course he could.
In 2112 is it. If you're ever read Adam strange back in
today and liked it, or have an occasional thing for science-fiction comics that
don't involve creatures bursting out of other people stomachs, you to try. Probably, you'll smile.
What more could
anyone ask?