Steve Orlando continues his reinvention of the Midnighter character with a showdown in Hell for the soul of his lover. How does this issue match up to the rest? Read on for the review, which contains some spoilers.
Written by Steve Orlando
Illustrated by Fernando BlancoMidnighter always knew that one day he would have to face the Devil himself to answer for all the people he’s killed here on Earth…and that day is today! It’s a bare-knuckle brawl between Midnighter and Neron for the soul of Apollo!
There comes a point in most miniseries where all the dominoes have been set up, and now you’re just watching them fall down. This can be both a positive and a negative: on the one hand, it shows how well everything had been set up in previous issues; on the other, the issue taken on its own can feel light. That’s exactly where we are right now with “Midnighter and Apollo” #5.
Almost the entire issue takes place in a single room, and it covers one fight which lasts about 10 minutes. All of this was set up in previous issues — this is just the climax. Unfortunately, because of the focus on a single fight in a single space over a short amount of time, the issue can feel lighter than past ones. There are some fun bits, but there aren’t any real course-changing revelations or unexpected moments. Midnighter and Neron exchange ideologies, then exchange fists. Midnighter and Apollo share an emotional moment together. It goes pretty much exactly as expected.
But in a lot of ways, that’s perfectly okay. Orlando deserves credit for setting expectations where they are: even if this issue does seem as if it’s playing it safe, it’s definitely continuing on the quality path that was previously set. Readers have been waiting for this battle, so it makes sense that it would take up so much space. And, on the whole, it does deliver.
One of my favorite aspects of Orlando’s Midnighter so far has been the bounty of wild imaginative concepts he throws in each issue. There was only one here, introduced in the beginning of the issue, which was set up to be a deus ex machina. Oddly, though, while it served as an explanation for how Midnighter was allowed to fight Neron, that ended up being all it did: the focus of the issue was on the dialogue between the two, and Midnighter’s characterization.
Orlando has done such a great job building up Midnighter as his own character beyond being a gay Batman, and that continues here. The entire plot of the issue, while light, highlights the character’s unapologetic and defiant nature. He is endlessly driven to reunite with Apollo; he has no qualms with going to Hell to make it happen; he looks in the face of the face of evil and says, “You answer to me.” Not only is the character perpetually determined to move forward through strength, but it’s all motivated by his love for his man. The character ends up as much an extreme action character as he is a romance one, and those two aren’t just connected: they are completely intertwined.
Blanco’s art likewise continues with the quality it has set up. There is a notable simplicity to the panel structure of most pages: a few single or double page spreads, some pages with as little as three panels. Even when large amounts of panels are used on a page, most pages follow a strict geometric pattern with equally-sized rectangles. It gives the pages a clear structured rhythm, which helps with the fight choreography. However, there are a few pages with the more inventive layouts that recent Midnighter artists have become known for, where little details are magnified in small panels embedded into larger ones. Instead of making the scene chaotic, as this style did in past issues, here it highlights major details when needed, whether that be a tooth slipping out of a mouth or a simple grin.
This being an issue full of what could be repetitive images, Blanco makes use of simple techniques to make the scenes feel organically suspenseful. His primary tool here is the progression of panels with identical size and shape. On one page, four stacked panels of the same size slowly zoom closer into the face on Midnighter’s collapsed body, as four panels placed directly next to them depict the same thing with Apollo. This gradual zoom works extremely well in building the suspense of the scene, as does placing the two moments next to each other. In a similar example, one page has four panels of identical size and framing showing Neron talking, and setting them up like this means we can clearly see how his facial expressions change as his dialogue continues. These are, as noted, simple techniques, but they work well to sell this specific portion of the story.
Overall, this issue works in fulfilling its function as a penultimate issue to a creator’s run on a character, but in doing so, partially loses sight of the imaginative concepts and layouts that have made this version of the character so renowned. In the end, though, this issue provides exactly what readers want to see at this point and still contains the strong characterizations that have made this version of the character a hit.
Final Verdict: 7.3 – Not the strongest of Orlando’s Midnighter saga, but still a solid second-to-last chapter for those who have been following along so far.
