Here at Multiversity Comics, we love Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s “Black Hammer.” The series has been on a break for a few months, but it returns later this week with “Black Hammer: Age of Doom” #1, so we wanted to take a look back at the Hammerverse and do a bit of a refresher course.
“Black Hammer” #1 took place on the ten year anniversary of the Cataclysm, when Anti-God attacked Spiral City. Since then, the series has jumped back and forth to different eras, exploring the pasts of its various characters. The timeline can sometimes get a little hazy (especially where Colonel Weird is concerned), so for this piece we’re going to break things down character by character, then organize it all in a timeline.
Spoiler warning: This column details the plots of “Black Hammer” #1–13, “Black Hammer Annual 2017,” “Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil” #1–4, and “Doctor Star and the Kingdom of Lost Tomorrows” #1–2.
CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES
Joseph Weber / Black Hammer
In the 1970s, Joseph Weber was a social worker in Spiral Slums. One night, he found a man dying in an alley—the original Black Hammer. As the Black Hammer died, Joe took up his hammer and was transported across the galaxy to the mysterious “New World.” There he met Starlok and the Lightriders. Starlok informed Joe that he was the new Black Hammer and one of the Lightriders. It was his duty to fight the cosmic despot Anti-God and his operatives.
Joe was OK with being the Black Hammer, but not so much with living in New World, so Starlock returned him to Spiral City. While Joe had thought he’d only been away for a few minutes, he came home to discover four months had passed and his wife, Lorraine, was pregnant with his child, Lucy.
During Joe’s career as the Black Hammer, he fought many villains, but more interestingly, he also saved villains, such as Ms. Parker (AKA the Metal Minotaur). Parker first came up against the Black Hammer in the ’70s, but every time he defeated her. After each defeat, Parker would redesign her battle armor and try again… until she built a suit that inadvertently broke her back. Black Hammer took her to New World and thanks to “crazy medicine and magic,” her life was saved. Afterward, the Black Hammer revealed his secret identity to Parker. The two became friends. He even felt secure enough around Parker that he showed her pictures of Lucy. (He was a very proud dad.)
Sure, if you want to measure the career of the Black Hammer, you could look at his secret headquarters, the Hall of Hammer, and look at all the suits and files about battles won, but I think the best measure of Joe Weber as a hero is seen in his relationship with Parker. He didn’t beat Parker to a pulp, he helped her as best he could, and even became her friend.
In the 1980s, the Black Hammer and his fellow superheroes were called to fight the Anti-God during the Cataclysm of Spiral City. Joe landed the final blow that got rid of the Anti-God, but somehow he and his fellow heroes were transported to the town of Rockwood. He didn’t know Anti-God had been stopped, so he was desperate to get back to Spiral City and save Lorraine and Lucy, but when he attempted to leave, a mysterious invisible barrier around Rockwood tore him to bits.
Lucy Weber, reporter for the Global Planet
Lucy was only nine years old when she lost her father. She was proud of him and what he had done to save Spiral City, but her mother would never let her tell anyone who her father really was. After all, what if the Black Hammer’s enemies sought out his family for revenge? So Lucy told people about her father’s other life, as a chef and a social worker, but it frustrated her to do so.
Eight years after the Cataclysm, when Lucy was about to start journalism school at Spiral University, she was contacted by Dr. James Robinson (AKA Doctor Star), a friend of the Black Hammer. He gave her the key and the location of her father’s Hall of Hammer. With access to all her father’s files, Lucy began her search for her father and the other missing heroes.
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Two years later, Lucy had finished journalism school, but her search for her father had gotten her nowhere. She decided instead of searching for heroes, she’d track down villains and see if she could somehow piece together what had happened… In the process, she met the most famous villain of all, Dr. Sherlock Frankenstein. Now reformed, Frankenstein had hidden himself away from the world. He agreed to fund Lucy’s search for the superheroes.
By the ten year anniversary of the Cataclysm, Lucy had a job as a journalist at the Global Planet. No longer afraid of villains seeking revenge, Lucy ran a piece revealing that the Black Hammer was her father and vowed to find him and the other heroes. Shortly after, she and Dr. Trigg (a scientist that once developed equipment for superheroes) uncovered a probe. With help from Dr. Robinson, she located a doorway in space and ventured through it…
…and arrived in Rockwood. Unfortunately, her memory of the doorway was immediately wiped by Madame Dragonfly (I’ve no idea why just yet), so she couldn’t begin to understand where she was or how to get out. Lucy was of course devastated to find out that her father had died, but she was still a reporter and tried to learn as much as she could about Rockwood. It was like a dream of a place, hazy on details—it had a library full of books, but the books were blank, and it was apparently frozen in time too, since Gail had been in Fourth Grade for a decade and no one seemed to think this was unusual.
Finally, Lucy visited the site of her father’s death, and found his hammer lying on the grass, so she bent down and picked it up…
Gail Gibbons / Golden Gail
Gail Gibbons became one of the first super heroes of the Golden Age. The date of her origin is never given in the comics, but it could have occurred as early as 1938 or as late as 1942. Gail was only nine when she became Golden Gail. She had run away from an orphanage and sought shelter in Spiral City’s Rialto Picture Palace. There she Zafram, a mysterious wizard trapped in “this world between worlds.” When Gail said Zafram’s name, she was endowed with the power of Zafram and became Golden Gail.
In 1942, Gail was a part of a group called the Liberty Squadron and joined the fight in World War II. As time passed, Gail Gibbons grew older, but whenever she transformed into Golden Gail, she was always nine. Over the years her relationship with this transformation changed. As a teenager it was embarrassing to turn into a nine year old; as an adult she hated it; but as she grew old, she began to enjoy it again, like a fountain of youth.
At age fifty-five (or shortly before), Gail called together the Golden Family (Captain Golden, Golden Gary, and Golden Gwen) and told them she was retiring.
Afterward she tracked down her oldest enemy, Dr. Sherlock Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein had recently come to the realization that he was in love with Gail and had turned his life around; his company, Frankenlock World-wide, had become a global leader in medical research and the development of clean energy. And Gail had noticed. She revealed that she was in love with Dr. Frankenstein and for a little while the two were happy.
Then the Cataclysm happened and Gail was trapped in Rockwood. Worse, she was trapped as Golden Gail, a fifty-five-year-old woman in a nine-year-old girl’s body. She was stuck in the Fourth Grade for a decade, and every day she’d say “Zafram,” hoping that she could finally turn back into herself.
Over time she grew frustrated, smoking at school or showing up drunk. Eventually she reached a breaking point and attempted suicide, but was saved at the last moment by Barbalien.
Mark Marks / Barbalien
Mark Marks is alien from Mars. When a NASA spacecraft crashed on his home planet, Mark Marks was sent to Earth as a diplomat, bringing the head of a dead NASA astronaut as a peace offering. (The culture on Mars is very different from our own.) When he arrived, he saw a cop killed in the line of duty and assumed his identity so that he could study humans closely. He also became a vigilante superhero known as “Barbalien, the Warlord from Mars.”
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For six years he lived a double life as a police officer and a superhero. In that time, he grew to care for his male Spiral P.D. partner, but when he confessed his attraction, his partner called him a freak. Mark’s life as a police officer went downhill fast after that as he was subjected to sustained harassment from his coworkers.
Mark retired from the police and became a private eye for a short while, but had grown so disillusioned with his life on Earth, he could not stay. On the night he planned to leave, he was summoned to New World and pulled into the conflict with Anti-God.
After the Cataclysm he was stuck with the other heroes in Rockwood. At one time he sought companionship with a local priest, but he was rejected and told to confess for his sinful behavior. Despite this, he refused to apologize for who he is. Mark feels very isolated in Rockwood, but he finds comfort with his Gail, his closest friend.
Abe Slamkowski / Abraham Slam
At the beginning of World War II, a young Abe Slamkowski attempted to enlist, but he failed every element of his physical exam and was declared unfit for duty. Afterward he met Punch Socklingham, a man that saw something more in Abe. After several months—and, yes, I did say months, not years—Punch had succeeded in turning Abe into the fighter he wanted to be. (Undoubtedly, Punch was the best trainer ever to work this miracle.) The pair had become good friends too, though sadly it was not to last. Punch was murdered by local thugs, and Abe took it upon himself to get revenge.
And so the hero Abraham Slam was born. In 1942 he joined the Liberty Squadron and fought alongside heroes like Golden Gail and Doctor Star. Together they traveled to Europe and fought the Nazis, and Abraham Slam became one of the great heroes of the Golden Age.
He fought on into the Silver Age, then the Bronze Age. By the late ’70s time was catching up to him. He was saving the day less and less—in fact, it was often him that needed the saving. After one incident, the Black Hammer suggested Abe re-evaluate his career choice; he couldn’t keep babysitting him anymore. Abe was stubborn though, and he kept up being a hero into the ’80s, trying to keep up with the times, but he was becoming a joke.
Eventually, he retired and he was miserable. Then one day he was summoned by Starlok and called to fight Anti-God and became trapped in Rockwood.
Unlike his companions, Abe grew to find comfort in his existence in Rockwood. There he felt no shame in hanging up the cape and was all too happy to ignore the weirdness of the town and focus on a simpler life. He started a relationship with a local, Tammy Trueheart… which brought about complications. Her ex-husband, Sheriff Earl Trueheart, was a jealous bastard. Earl and Abe had more than a couple of public confrontations, so when Earl went missing, Abe was the first (and pretty much only) suspect. Even Tammy didn’t believe Abe when he said he had nothing to do with Earl’s disappearance.
Then Lucy Weber showed up and started complicating things further, insisting she could find a way out of Rockwood, something it seems Abe doesn’t even want anymore.
Colonel Randall Weird and TLK-E WLK-E (AKA “Talky Walky”)
This is probably the most tricky bio to write, since Col. Weird doesn’t really experience time linearly. In the 1950s he was NASA astronaut, sent out to the stars on exciting adventures. It was on one of these adventures that he discovered a planet of robots. One of these robots, TLK-E WLK-E (though Weird calls her Talky Walky), did not feel at home with the other robots and joined Weird on his journeys across the galaxy.
On a couple of these adventures, Col. Weird ran into an old man dressed in his clothes who spoke cryptically about what he could and couldn’t do. In 1955, Col. Weird followed mysterious co-ordinates he’d discovered to a doorway in space. He went through and entered the Para-Zone.
This is where things get a little hazy. In the comic, we haven’t seen the young Col. Weird since he ventured into the Para-Zone, but the elderly Col. Weird has shown up a lot. He seems to drift through time involuntarily, experiencing things out of order, getting flashes of what is going to happen and what has happened. Other times he’ll emerge from the Para-Zone and experience an event directly. The Para-Zone seems to have driven him mad, though. He struggles to comprehend or even remember his experiences. He seems to be stuck in a dreamlike state… though less of a dream, more of a nightmare.
At one point Col. Weird ended up 1964 where he found his girlfriend, Eve. She hadn’t seen Weird for nine years, and was desperate to join him in the Para-Zone. It did not go well.
Col. Weird frequently stresses that he cannot change anything. Whether this is true or merely his understanding of things remains to be seen, but it has led him to do some truly dreadful things, such as killing his dear companion, Talky Walky.
There may yet be hope for Talky though. After her death, Talky’s consciousness lingered… somewhere…
Madame Dragonfly
Nearly one hundred years before the Cataclysm of Spiral City, there lived a naïve farmer’s wife. She had a baby, Jacob, but he died, and in her grief she turned to a witch, begging her to bring him back to life. The witch agreed on one condition: the farmer’s wife would have to take the witch’s place in her cabin in the woods.
And so the farmer’s wife became Madame Dragonfly. She did not see Jacob again, she didn’t even know what happened to him. All she had was the witch’s words, “All in good time.”
Many years later, children were going missing in a nearby town, and men with guns came to her door demanding they be allowed to search Madame Dragonfly’s cabin. One did not heed her warning and entered the cabin where he met the horrors it contained. The other man attacked Madame Dragonfly, and in defense she used magic, transforming him into some kind of swamp creature.
Over time Madame Dragonfly and the swamp creature found companionship in each other, and ultimately love. For a while they were happy, but then Dragonfly was called into the Cataclysm conflict in Spiral City.
When she became trapped in Rockwood, she found her cabin waiting for her, but the swamp creature was nowhere to be found. Soon after she discovered she was pregnant with the swamp creature’s child. What happened to the child exactly isn’t known, save that it is a dark tale and that the child died.
Since then, Dragonfly has mostly kept to her cabin while in Rockwood, posing as Gail’s mother when necessary. She’s certainly the most distant member of the group, and even manages to creep out Col. Weird. It also seems she knows more than she’s letting on.
When Lucy Weber arrived in Rockwood, Dragonfly was quick to erase her memory and conceal this from the others.
But she also has some loyalty to the others, getting them out of difficult situations. And when she learned Sheriff Earl Trueheart had threatened Abe’s girlfriend, she swiftly murdered him…
Madame Dragonfly seems to have a better understanding of what Rockwood is than the others. At one point she mentioned that Earl had developed “too much free will” and become the one thing she would not allow in Rockwood…
This was a little tricky to piece together. Most of the time, the comics don’t reference specific dates, but instead use the Cataclysm as a frame of reference. While no specific time for the Cataclysm is ever given, I have been able to place it between 1984 and 1988. For the purposes of this timeline, I’m going to assume it was 1986 and mark all dates based on that assumption in red. So any date in red could have occurred as much as two years earlier or later. (Update: According to the “Black Hammer” FCBD 2018 story, 1986 was the year of the Cataclysm after all!)
Continued below1800–1850: A villainous figure that could be mistaken for Sherlock Frankenstein terrorizes 19th Century London.
Approx. 1886, “Nearly 100 years before the Cataclysm”: A farmer’s wife meets with a witch and begs her to bring her dead baby, Jacob, back to life. The witch agrees, but in return the farmer’s wife is turned into Madame Dragonfly.
1893: A dying man experiments on himself and becomes Sherlock Frankenstein. He is a hero, using his inventions to fight crime and his genius to solve mysteries. Some time afterward, he tries the same experiment on his dying lover, but it fails and she dies. A bitter Sherlock Frankenstein becomes a villain.
THE PLATINUM AGE
1926: Sherlock Frankenstein leaves England for America, settling in Spiral City.
1926–1940s: Sherlock Frankenstein fights against Doc Steele and the Crimson Mist.
1932: Tazara joins Doc Steele and the Crimson Mist in fighting Sherlock Frankenstein.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Early 1940s: Sherlock Frankenstein becomes known to the public of Spiral City for the first time.
1940: A nine-year-old Gail Gibbons encounters the wizard Zafram and gains superpowers.
1941: Doctor James Robinson starts researching the Para-Zone for the US government.
June 12: Dr. Robinson successfully tests the Para-Wand.
December 1941 / Early 1942: After trying and failing to enlist in World War II, Abraham Slamkowski meets Punch Socklingham. Punch starts training Abe.
1942: Punch is killed by Mr. Olsen’s goons, spurring Abe on to become costumed hero Abraham Slam.
The Liberty Squadron (Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Doctor Star, Wingman, Captain Night, Doctor Day, and the Horseless Rider) is formed and fight in World War II.
1951: Doctor Star makes contact with peaceful aliens and defends them from an alien that wishes them harm. Due to time dilation from a black hole, Doctor Star’s quick fight ends up lasting eighteen years in Earth time.
Early 1950s: Colonel Randall Weird meets Talky Walky.
Late 1955: While investigating co-ordinates found on a star chart on Virius-6, Colonel Randall Weird becomes trapped in the Para-Zone.
THE SILVER AGE
1964: An elderly Col. Weird from 1996 visits his girlfriend, Eve. The young Randall Weird has been missing for almost nine years.
Later, in the 1960s: Eve attempts to join Col. Weird in the Para-Zone. She is torn to bits.
1969: Doctor Star returns home from saving aliens to discover his family eighteen years older.
THE BRONZE AGE
Early 1970s: Sherlock Frankenstein forms Frankenlock Worldwide, creating weapons for the military–industrial complex.
1976–1977, Winter: Joseph Weber finds the original Black Hammer dying and picks up his hammer. He is transported to New World where he meets Starlok and the Lightriders.
1977:
Spring: Four months after he disappeared, Joseph Weber returns. His wife is approximately five months pregnant.
June–October-ish: Lucy Weber is born.
1977/’78/’79: Ms. Parker builds the Metal Minotaur armor and starts fighting Black Hammer.
1979: Abe fights Cthu-Lou (Dr. Louis Love). Black Hammer saves the day and tells Abe he should consider hanging up his mask.
1979/1980: Mark Marks travels to Earth and assumes the identity of a Spiral City police officer who had been killed in the line of duty.
1983: The last time there is public knowledge of Sherlock Frankenstein’s location (the Spiral City Asylum).
1983: Plumber Louis Kaminski becomes the new Cthu-Lou.
1984/1985: Sherlock Frankenstein realizes he’s in love with Golden Gail and changes Frankenlock into a philanthropic company.
1985/1986: Barbalien fights Taurus. A week later, Mark Marks reveals his feelings for Cole, his partner. For an indeterminate time after, Mark Marks is harassed at work.
Continued below1986: Madame Dragonfly accidentally turns a hunter into a swamp monster. They fall in love.
Golden Gail retires and confesses her love to Sherlock Frankenstein.
Spring: Mark Marks quits working for the Spiral PD.
Summer: Mark Marks works as a private detective.
Fall or Winter, The Cataclysm: Barbalien attempts leaving Earth, but is summoned to New World. Starlok tells Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Barbalien, Madame Dragonfly, Colonel Weird, Talky Walky, and Black Hammer to fight Anti-God. The heroes save Spiral City, but become stuck in the town of Rockwood, a place out of time. Black Hammer tries to escape and dies.
THE MODERN AGE
1987: Madame Dragonfly is pregnant with the swamp monster’s child. The baby does not survive.
1994 (before Fall): Lucy Weber finds the Hall of Hammer and begins searching for her father.
1996, “Modern Day”:
“Sherlock Frankenstein” #1–4: Lucy Weber finds Sherlock Frankenstein. He agrees to fund her search for her father.
“Black Hammer” #1, 10th anniversary of the Cataclysm: Lucy Weber is now a reporter for the Global Planet.
“Black Hammer” #2: Talky Walky launches her sixth probe.
“Black Hammer” #3: Lucy Weber and Dr. Trigg find Talky Walky’s probe.
“Black Hammer” #4: With the help of Doctor Star, Lucy locates a doorway in space to Rockwood.
“Black Hammer” #6: Lucy arrives in Rockwood, but Madame Dragonfly wipes her memory.
“Black Hammer” #8: Talky Walky starts building a new probe based on the energy signature data from Lucy’s arrival. Col. Weird kills Talky Walky.
“Black Hammer” #10: Madame Dragonfly murders Earl Trueheart, the jealous ex-husband of Tammy, Abe’s girlfriend in Rockwood.
“Black Hammer” #11: Gail attempts suicide, but is saved by Barbalien.
“Black Hammer” #13, the Event: Abe is a suspect in regards to the disappearance of Earl Trueheart. Lucy Weber picks up her father’s hammer, triggering “the Event,” and becomes the new Black Hammer.
“Black Hammer: Age of Doom” #1: …Find out this Wednesday.
BLACK HAMMER: AGE OF DOOM #1
Written by Jeff Lemire
Illustrated by Dean Ormston
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered byThe Eisner Award-winning superhero saga returns!
Picking up immediately where we left off—Lucy Weber has become the new Black Hammer and right as she’s about to reveal to our heroes how they got stuck on the farm and can escape she vanishes. Now our new Black Hammer finds herself trapped in a gritty world filled with punk rock detectives, emo gods, anthropomorphic humans, absurdist heroes, and many more weirdos, in a mad world in which there is no escape!
Art for this column by Dean Ormston, David Rubín, Max Fiumara, Ray Fawkes, and Dave Stewart from various “Black Hammer” titles.
