Clint's Reviews > The Human Target, Volume 1

Kinda shocking to unabashedly love a Tom King book again! As much as I liked some of his earlier depressive husband stories, he repeated that trick a few too many times (even his Supergirl had an elegiacal tone, though she wasn’t a husband) so I’m glad to finally see a lead who’s neither depressed nor a husband. I was also surprised (and loved) seeing the late 80s JLI play such a big part in this: Guy Gardiner, Ice, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and a bunch of the rest show up, and that seems to be the corner of old DC comics he’s playing with most this time. Each JLI member gets enough establishing context if they’re totally new to you, but there’s also some delightful scenes and callbacks for anyone already familiar with them. Of course, King treats their superheroics with the same refreshing day job casualness that he does so well.

And while the narrative tone isn’t depressive this time, the murder mystery has a serious noir edge that’s adjacent to King’s usual tone while still feeling new. His formal experiments also work better for me here than in his last few stories: one issue mixes up the timeline of several events in a way that left me grasping for clarity at first, but made sense by issue’s end and really impressed me on a quick re-read with how clear it was. Some similar bits of his recent books seemed indulgent and unnecessary, but here it felt daring and novel.

And the art! It’s great enough to read for its sake alone, done in a vibrant, poppy midcentury style that recalls Saul Bass, or a lot of the same aesthetic that something like Mad Men uses. Some of the effect lettering even looks like a Saul Bass poster font. No matter how the back half of the story turns out, I’m excited to see six more issues of Smallwood’s art.