The Human Target #10 – Tom King, Writer; Greg Smallwood, Artist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: We’re in the final arc of Tom King’s noir thriller—the same week that the second issue of his next one drops, so he’s still going strong. But there are so many unanswered questions here, just like any good mystery. Who killed Christopher Chance? Is his lover Ice involved? And what the hell happened to Guy Gardner? Christopher can be a hard guy to like, and that’s rarely clearer than in the opening, when he drugs Ice to knock her out and get the free time to investigate a lead he doesn’t want her to know about. And the person he needs to help him with that lead is… G’nort, the only other Green Lantern involved in the JLI. Together, they’re going to break into Oa and seek the truth about what actually happened to Guy. G’nort is usually played as a pure joke, and while he is goofy here, there’s a sad-sack quality to him that makes him feel not completely out of place in this darker universe.
King and Smallwood are not a creative team you’d associate with sci-fi, which is why the segments on Oa are so impressive this issue. The idea that the Guardians are essentially spying on the entire universe, keeping dossiers on everyone alive, is kind of creepy but fascinating. The segment where Chance spies on his own dossier is fantastic, but that’s not the one he’s here for. Not only does he get the answers he’s looking for and escape—using an unconventional method to escape a hostile Guardian—but he gets the information he needs to piece together the case. With two issues left, and a whole lot of twists along the way, King proves that he knows his noir tropes inside and out. No matter what story you’re telling, there’ll always be a patsy—and there will always be a mastermind. I can see the resolution here being controversial, but King has definitely set us up for a dramatic finish.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
