Sinestro: Year of the Villain #1 – Mark Russell, Writer; Yildray Cinar, Artist; Julio Ferreira, Inker; Hi-Fi, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Mark Russell is one of the most interesting writers in the DC stable, but his writing forte tends to be darkly comic satires of our modern politics combined with superhero chaos. As such, I didn’t think he was a natural fit for Sinestro: Year of the Villain #1, an event tie-in featuring a cosmic supervillain.
Sinestro’s been one of Luthor’s most loyal lieutenants since the beginning of this Justice League run, and now that Luthor’s transformed himself and put his plan into effect, Sinestro’s taking the cosmic part of the plan by the horns.
This story involves a mysterious race of aliens known as the Paragons, who seem to heal from any damage and are targeting the worlds converted by Luthor to the cause of doom – putting Earth square in its crosshairs. Sinestro is deputized to take them out, and the villains quickly manhandle him and doom the planet – which is ruled by a God-emperor named “Garf”, because this is a Mark Russell comic and it needs a dose of absurdity.
Things get a lot more interesting and Russell-esque when it’s discovered what the true source of the Paragons’ power is – a secret race of beings called Microns who are born and die in under a second and live their entire abbreviated lives viewing the Paragons as Gods and working themselves to death repairing their cellular damage.
Sinestro realizes the key to defeating his enemy is by untethering them from the Microns, thus stripping them of their healing abilities – but comes up empty when he tries to preach a gospel of nihilism. The eventual solution he comes up with is one of the more clever twists I’ve seen in a Russell comic, and it also parallels some of our own darker generational conflicts.
After all, there’s two main ways to get people to question their status quo – more free time, and more resentment of other people. For an event tie-in, this is a comic with a lot on its mind and some really clever writing, making it a great kick-off to this mini-line of tie-in one-shots.
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Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
