Written by David Liss
Illustrated by Patrick ZircherClassified!
A little while ago, Marvel attempted to reimagine some of their heroes in the noir/pulp setting, to varied success. Now Marvel is doing away with all the excess and just going right for the kill with brand new pulp heroes for it’s historical database. Who are the Mystery Men indeed?
Take a look behind the cut for some thoughts on the first issue.
Marvel’s Noir line had one major flaw going for it: it wasn’t actually a line of noir books. While the Daredevil book did the genre a good deal of justice, every other title wasn’t very noir-esque at all. All had noir elements, but failed to actually recreate what makes every famous noir story so notable. In fact, most of the books were pulp, really. Meanwhile, Marvel’s quick attempt at pulp with Deadpool ended up being more noir than most of their noir titles in an humorous turn. So the question then becomes: if Marvel is launching a book that takes place in the depression, before Captain America existed and long before the Twelve, can we possibly get a book that accurately represents one genre or the other?
The answer is: to a point, yes, actually. Mystery Men is not a strictly noir title, but it’s really rather close in terms of content. It’s essentially a cross between popular noir tropes and you more average superhero story, just displaced to this unique time. Mystery Men follows a new hero in the Depression era who is caught up in the mystery of who killed his actress girlfriend and why, and why was he framed for the murder. He in turn ends up with her twin sister to solve the mystery as well as another new mystery superhero who is fighting both crime and racial prejudice. It’s an interesting balance between the two genres; the twin sister element is pure noir, a story device that I can recall from many a story. However, when we go to the superhero aspect of the story, it’s a bit more traditional to modern day supe storytelling than the superheroes of the Golden Age, albeit for completely understandable reasons. The title also breaks some other traditional noir trends, such as showing the audience the villain right from the beginning and not allowing the main factor of the story to be a twisting and turning mystery endeavor, full of betrayal and dames. However, the title still does manage to deliver on the initial promise and it’s still got one up on the previous Noir line.
Of course, the book is obviously more than that. While on the one hand I would rather see some original new characters created for the modern Marvel U, the usage of this time period is done appropriately in a way that really becomes a dissection on the time period more than it is just a strictly noir/pulp-based comic. As stated in the backmatter, writer David Liss wanted this to be more than just a superhero book or just a noir book, and hrough a lot of storytelling based stereotypes it does this quite well: there are gender equality issues, racial problems, class imbalances, political corruption – you name it. Everything you’ve seen in your favorite gangster movie or perhaps even recently in LA Noire is here, integrated into the Marvel Universe. Marvel has always been quite wonderful about doing it’s best to reflect the real world, with actions in our reality having an effect on the Marvel reality as well (Fear Itself being one of those things, truth be told), and in that Mystery Men succeeds. It’s not pretty and it lacks all of the glamour of all the traditional superhero books of our time, but it is what it is: the dirty yet beautiful 1940s.
All things considered, where David Liss had casually intrigued me with Black Panther he makes me more integrated with the title here. I’ve been enjoying Black Panther for what it is, but something always felt off; Liss’ writing was good, but it didn’t necessarily fit for a character like T’Challa. However, his more slow paced plotting and character work fit better into this setting, and even into the genre. Liss is mixing and matching as he goes, but as odd as it is to see at first it does eventually line up and work. This blend of super-noir is more enjoyable than most of the previous noir efforts and it reads at a much better pace than Liss’ Black Panther work. It feels like Liss is more comfortable in the setting, working with characters from scratch who while being brand new are also timely familiar and not too hard to adapt to while reading the story. Liss’ work here is akin to Brubaker’s work on the Marvels Project, and while the title hasn’t reached those heights yet it’s not unfeasible to assume that as the story progresses it could become even more endearing than it already is.
Continued belowPatrick Zircher offers up some fairly great work with the issue. Combined with Andy Troy for colors, the book is dark enough to be a noir title yet bright enough to be a superhero book, continuing the cross-blending of the two genres. Zircher has a great panel and scene structure for the book here, with the second page being the first to truly draw me in. For the most part, Zircher’s art is like a darker and straighter version of Albuquerque’s from American Vampire, and while it doesn’t have the same pop that AV has it has a dark tone that feels at home within the title. It’s even akin to Mike Perkins during his work on Captain America or the Stand, mixing in enough other worldly elements to remind you you’re reading a superhero title but featuring enough realistic and quiet moments of investigation and character interaction to give the title a real human quality to it through the art. Suffice it to say, it’s a very pretty book.
All in all, the premise of the series intrigues me greatly. David Liss has the right voice for this kind of a title, and the idea that cameos of established characters will be made in order to “place” this story somewhere firmly in the Marvel history is very intriguing. It’s actually something I’m quite looking forward to in future issues, as well as the formation of the Mystery Men (or whatever this “team” decides to do). With Zircher and Troy on board for the art, there is no doubt that this is going to be a very pretty book to hold when all is said and done, and considering it’s a brand new title of brand new characters it’s a great book for new readers to hop into Marvel. The issue is certainly a good enough start to intrigue me to follow the story further, and hopefully if all goes well with the title this won’t be the last we see of these characters.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Buy
