“Barbalien: Red Planet” comes to its end with its fifth issue, brining the story back full circle to where it began, with a stark portrayal of the red planet.
Since this is the final issue, there will be many spoilers ahead.
Story by Jeff Lemire and Tate Brombal
Script by Tate Brombal
Illustrated by Gabriel Hernández Walta
Colored by Jordie Bellaire
Lettered by Aditya BidikarIn this blood-chilling finale, the Martian hero Barbalien faces age-old hatred from Mars and Earth as he clashes with the bounty hunter after his head–and tensions finally boil over between his two lives as a police officer and hero, leaving the young man he’s come to love in the dangerous crossfire of an inevitable riot.
The cover for “Barbalien: Red Planet” #1 had Mark Markz subdued and in chains. In contrast, “Barbalien: Red Planet” #5 has Mark breaking loose from his chains, his subjugation giving way to rage. The covers are intentionally designed as a set, like a before and after, and in so doing, the story is inviting us to contrast the beginning with its ending before we’ve even opened the comic.
Even both issues begin in the same part of the story, with Mark Markz on trial. The version in issue #1 is external, focused on Barbalien’s circumstances, but not allowing the reader into his mental state. Issue #5, now with the weight of everything that’s happened in the past four issues, while intercutting with flashbacks of traumatic moments from Mark’s childhood, is extremely focused on his emotional state. Even lines of dialogue are played a little differently. In issue #1, this line of dialogue is heard plainly, but in issue #5, we hear only what cuts through to Mark.
Right: From “Barbalien: Red Planet” #5
But we don’t stay on Mars very long. For all the emphasis put on the trial, the heart of the story is going on back on Earth. It’s curious that for a story called ‘Red Planet,’ there’s very little of Mars in it. The first four issues take place almost entirely on Earth during the mid 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The characters whose stories and struggles we’ve been engaging with are a part of the underground gay scene of Spiral City, the threats they face are the brutality of SCPD, the neglect of their government, and the indifference of their fellow citizens. By the end of issue #4 you may be forgiven for wondering what most of this has to do with Mars.
Then issue #5 comes along, and it quickly becomes clear that the titular red planet was never Mars at all.
In fact, red isn’t even really tired to Mars at all, but rather to trauma, to violence, and to blood. Colorist Jordie Bellaire keeps bold reds from the Mars scenes until we finally see the moments from Mark’s childhood that scarred him deeply. But Earth? That’s had red splashed throughout the series. There’s even a scene in the second issue when Café Knight Klüb is raided by the police and the entire color palette changes to reds.
This story initially presents as a pulpy John Carter–esque story, but it very quickly becomes something else entirely. What interests me about this structure is how it uses the language of pulps and superhero stories to frame its argument.
Before Barbalien came to Earth, he lived on Mars. His father, a diplomat, died uniting several of the warring tribes of Mars. Barbalien grew up surrounded by peers that thought they were better than him—every scene on Mars since “Black Hammer” first launched has always had an adversarial tone. Mark is expected to hold his tongue and be a good citizen while his peers tried to goad him into violence.
In “Barbalien: Red Planet,” we see this same dynamic reflected in the queer community in Spiral City, where they are expected to be good citizens, even as they are treated so poorly. The average citizen can be angry about the protestors, but the queer community is expected to be silent, even as they’re dying.
Continued belowMark’s journey is from silence to justified anger. The trial during the finale is simply taking the societal construct of Spiral City and putting Martian faces on them. In that scene, Mark’s silence literally means his death in a very tangible way. The barriers to his freedom are directly juxtaposed with Miguel’s struggles on Earth. Again and again, artist Gabriel Hernández Walta uses similarity in composition as these two sequences play out side by side, deliberately invoking comparison.
But this is what “Black Hammer” does—more than that, this is what “Black Hammer” is. These comics have never been about superheroes; they’ve always been about other ideas explored through the lens of superheroes. This is woven into the fabric of every story from Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s world. As the line of “Black Hammer” books has expanded, we’ve been seeing other writers and artists take their own swings at this to varying degrees of success, but in the case of Tate Brombal, he’s written something that can more than stand side by side with best of the Lemire-written tales. He’s shown such a clear understanding of what makes a story work for the World of Black Hammer.
After finishing this story, there are certain choices that stick with me, that I continue to think about. In the SCPD, we see many police officers, and any one of them could have easily been the one that shot Miguel, but ultimately it was Spence, the officer that had been the least violent up to that point (though shown to be complicit in other ways throughout). I think about Boa Boaz, and how he used his shapeshifting ability to make himself physically imposing, how his whole mission to Earth was never really about Mark at all, but rather to fulfil a power fantasy. I think about Dr. Rosalyn Day, and how she had all the makings of a legacy superhero character, but instead chose to be a medical doctor instead.
I’m not done digesting this one yet, and there are certain ideas Brombal introduced that I’d love to see explored in other stories. Hell, I’d even just like to see more of Mark Marks in the aftermath of this story. He spends at least two months as a private eye before Anti-God shows up in Spiral City, and I’m curious to see how he copes, what brings him back to Earth, and how he continues to be the public persona of Barbalien (if he continues to be Barbalien, that is).
But most of all I think about Mark and Miguel meeting in the most famous superhero meet cute fashion of all, and then of them parting the same way. Everything about the way their relationship was established and constructed was to tell us that if they had been a straight couple, they would’ve had a romance spanning years, even decades, like Clark and Lois.
Final Verdict: 9 – Not just an excellent comic, but one that deserves a reread.
