True story: the two beginnings of the Resurrection Man was the very first pairing I thought of when I began to envision this article. I sat on it until now as it took me a while to formulate exactly what I wanted to say (and to track down a copy of the 1997 debut issue), but admittedly this particular pairing has more of a twist than any of the other match-ups we’ve looked at. Unlike other books to debut and then debut again in a far different time in comic book history, Resurrection Man has been (pun intended) brought to life twice (in 1997 and then again in 2011) by the same writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. The duo were given a chance that many creators never receive: the opportunity to take a second crack at a book that, while certainly attaining cult favorite status with its initial run, never really took hold in the way many of its fans expected it to. But how have the interim twelve years affected the duo’s approach to the character? How can you restart a character from scratch that you yourself created with a clear pallet? How does returning right smack on the periphery of a major, universe wide reboot affect a character that spent the entirety of its existence on the periphery of every’s universe?
Click on down to find out!
As I mapped out this piece, I realized more and more that I may be writing it at a disadvantage. Had I read the entirety of the first run of Resurrection Man as opposed to only the first issue dug out of a longbox for the purposes of writing this article, I be able to accurately say whether or not the 2011 debut of the book was a direct continuation of the previous book, as a repeat read of it would suggest. However, as it stands I only have the usual criteria of measuring one debut against another that this column is built upon, so lets get to it shall we?
1997 debuts with a bang. Or, a couple bangs as it happens, as we find our hero right in the middle of a rescue attempt with his newly discovered powers of flight. However it seems that mastery would never be attained as the titular John Joe finds himself dead in a pile of garbage before long. After awakening several hours later with the power to manipulate the winds, the real story begins. Having no memory of who he is or where he comes from, our hero stumbles to a local library where, with the help of a kindly, young librarian, he learns who he is or, at the very least, who he was. While once he was Mitch Shelley, well respected lawyer, what he had become in the two years since his apparent death was something considerably more strange. Following this is a pretty conventional introduction to two of the major antagonists of the book (The Body Doubles), requisite early epic tragedy followed by character disenchantment, an uncanny widescreen rescue of innocents and, yes, another death for our hero. All of this amounts to a stunningly solid debut issue.
It takes baby steps at first to allow the reader to enter the frazzled headspace of the main character, it spits out bits of backstory enough to bring in anyone with a healthy imagination (a prerequisite amongst most comic readers both then and now) without giving too much as to remove all suspense, introduces somewhat likable but still dangerous antagonists (and sets the stage for others to appear) before finally giving the character itself enough of a heading to lead into the rest of the story. As far as debut issues go, this one does everything almost completely right.
2011 however, needs a little bit of work, and it baffles me that both books can be written by the same two creators. 2011’s first page brings us Mitch Shelley returning to life in a nondescript morgue. Right off the bat he not only knows who he is, but is also very familiar with the whole “get killed, come back with new powers” scenario. There is no identity crisis for the character itself, and thus the reader is brought up to speed via hefty exposition that at times bogs the story down. Most of the issue following this is essentially Mitch using his newly acquired power over magnetic fields to expound upon random civilians in an airport that have little to no consequence to the overall story. Following this we are given the first major deviation from the basic premise of the 1997 debut: agents of Heaven are now after Mitch. It seems that his unique situation has garnered much attention from the denizens of the afterlife and one angel in particular sets out to collect Mitch’s soul, by force if necessary. Following a somewhat hard to follow extended fight sequence, Mitch loses his battle to protect the innocent and slinks off as his new hydromorph powers emerge. Following this is a hasty reintroduction to The Body Doubles (couldn’t forget about them, huh guys?) and a rather abrupt but still exposition heavy end to the issue.
Continued below
There is no way around this outcome, but in a lot of ways, 2011 reads almost like the cliffs notes version of 1997. Whereas 1997 takes the time and effort to world build, 2011 seems to rely a little too much on the world already being established for them (both by the previous run of the book and by the circumstances of the DC Rebooted Universe being essentially public knowledge). Like myself (I read 2011 before I even realized 1997 even existed, let alone that it was by the same guys), 2011 was almost assuredly the first exposure many readers would have to the Resurrection Man, and yet crucial parts of his origin are glossed over and forcefed in such a way that makes them the exact opposite of compelling. By putting us almost literally in the character’s shoes, 1997 gives us a story that is primed to emotionally invest in but still includes enough action and suspense to be a fairly entertaining comic book comic (and no that isn’t a typo).
On top of this, 2011 proves that less is more since 1997 created mystery and 2011 created a wikipedia entry. Which is ironic given that at 20 pages, 2011 is much shorter than 1997 in terms of actual page count, which makes the fact that it said too much even more baffling. In a lot of ways, 2011 does way too much telling and 1997 spends more time showing how the character’s situation builds the story around him, as opposed to force feeding the story to us in a frontal way. 2011 had a lot of potential, as the heavenly angle brought to the character is one with a lot of potential. However the way it was presented left me not only cold, but feeling slightly talked down to. As if the book sort of knew all the exposition thrown in was for my (playing the part of the new reader) benefit and blamed me for it having to drag the story down. Either way, 1997 made me want to read on (which is convenient given that a trade of the whole run is being released this month) whereas 2011 was dropped with Issue #2 after it being one of my most highly anticipated books of the new DC lineup.
Of course, DCnU mandates and an innate requirement to make the book fit into not only a 20 page limit but also a shared universe may have something to do with the things I disliked about DnA’s second attempt at launching this book. However, much like a band’s earlier efforts invariably ending up superior to “the new stuff”, the strengths of the first attempt combined with the weaknesses of the second make this one of the easiest showdowns to call.
Final Showdown: Resurrection Man #1 (1997) > Resurrection Man #1 (2011)
