If the idea behind DC Comics’ “WTF month” was to create comic covers based out of pure deception and craft uninspired stories out of underwhelming “surprises”, then “DC Universe Presents” #19 just might be their biggest success in April. If you were drowsy while reading that first line, I’m saying that this is not a very good comic book.
Warning: some spoilers for the so-called “WTF moment” are present in the review.
Written by Tony Bedard
Illustrated by Javier PinaIn this final issue, what time displaced-hero has arrived on our world—and is the destruction he brings the herald to a great disaster?
Look, fake-out covers have been a staple of comics since before Adam West was dancing the Batusi. If DC would have built an entire month celebrating the wacky, lying covers of the Silver Age of Comics, that’s something that would have been widely embraced by fans as a fun event and a nod to the rich (sometimes non-sensical) history of DC’s characters. Instead, they initially tried to sell it as a month where every book would contain a moment designed to “shock” the reader with a nod to that moment appearing on the cover. It’s not nitpicking to say that those two ideas describe completely different end products. With one, you have an homage that is meant to silly while “seeming” shocking. With the other, you have something that usually ends up as a disappointment that DC Comics set themselves up for. “DC Universe Presents” #19 is one of the most egregious cases of that. Only the most tenuous strain holds what you see on the cover to what you get in the book, which is why this would have worked better as an admitted fake-out than a story that was designed to shock and amaze.
The issue opens with one Gwendolyn Pierce, who last I checked was a character from Charles in Charge, messing around with an obscure artifact that acts as a key to some version of time-traveling. This summons the “WTf-er” himself, Beowulf, into her timeline. It also brings a by-the-numbers shape-shifting foe into the mix so that Beowulf has a thing to fight in the most rote manner imaginable. It’s a nameless, faceless villain so unimaginative and overdone that it actually sucks life out of the story. It’s shapeshifting imbues the issue with nothing other than an excuse to look like (but not act or sound like) several of the greatest Justice Leaguers before it’s swiftly dispatched of by our hero. There’s no real heart present in the story and there’s no true connection to the rest of DC universe, leaving anyone who isn’t a fan of the Beowulf character already out in the cold. It also feels like a very deliberate set-up for Beowulf to appear in his own book, which it doesn’t feel like anyone was asking for. There’s a trend of writing one off stories or issues in comics these days and ending them with the always unsatisfying: “The End?” The art of the “one-shot” is dying and issue #19 of this comic is proof.
Jesus Saiz was the original artist solicited for this issue (and remains as such on the DC Comics’ website) and was the original artist of Bedard’s Beowulf backup story in “Sword of Sorcery.” However, he is not the artist of this issue. Javier Pina got the duty and mostly did a passable job in a quick replacement role. Early scenes involving the arcane summoning of Beowulf actually look quite good. Pina has a clean style that actually captures what Saiz was doing with the character quite well and the occult nature of the sequences are captured nicely. It’s not as detailed as Saiz’s efforts, but looks just as attractive. For a while, anyway. Once the book gets out into the streets and the shape-shifting starts taking place, things get a little strange. The depictions of each of the Justice Leaguers range from slightly odd to just plain off-model. Even if the choice was made to imbue the nature of the shapeshifter into their physical appearances, the finished product doesn’t achieve any intended or identifiable effect. Beowulf brandishes his sword with no sense of motion or weight and the fight has no flow to it. In fact, the transformations themselves prove troublesome in the execution, as the villain appears to dart from panel to panel with no sense of logic or placement within the environment.
Continued belowIt should also be mentioned that the design team on the book resorted to using digitally typed lettering for all of the prominent signage in the issue. These instances stick out like a sore thumb, never look natural, and don’t always even seem to be aligned properly. This is obviously easier to do than to drawing the lettering into the art itself, but it always looks cheap and artificial. There is simply never a time where an artificial shortcut looks preferable to creating these letters, logos, and images within the art itself.
“DC Universe Presents” has been a great concept with flawed execution since the ‘New 52′ began. This final, Beowulf-centric issue is filled with the symptoms of all the worst of the series’ problems: The ever-decreasing ability of modern comic books to tell a short story that also satisfies, a reliance on audiences to buy future or concurrently running comic books, a general disregard for what made classic characters work, and inconsistent art. Maybe DC would have actually been better off using issue #19 to cross the ‘New 52’ with the Scott Baio-verse? Now that would have made comic fans say “WTF.”
Final Verdict: 3.5 – Pass. You’d have to be a die-hard Beowulf fan. Are there any of those out there?
