The tie-in to an event is always a strange beast. Sometimes, the tie-ins are where some of the most important stuff in an event happens. Other times, they feel like cash-ins for the die-hards that don’t add anything. But other times, like with “Titans Beast World Waller Rising” #1, they appear to be not only tangentially related at best to the event, but also a jumping off point for something else all together.
Written by Chuck BrownCover by Keron Grant
Illustrated and colored by Keron Grant
Lettered by Wes AbbottThe Kingdom, a mystical and metaphysical realm, sits at the nexus of the Parliaments. A formidable new adversary, Dr. Hate, emerges with intentions to corrupt both the Kingdom and the Parliament of the Red in the pursuit of chaos. Batwing, Vixen, Val-Zod Superman, and Black Manta are thrust together in a desperate fight for survival. They must learn to cooperate to thwart Dr. Hate’s destructive plans before The Wicked Entity can devastate this unique plane, which represents a collective consciousness. This consciousness unifies the Red, Green, Rot, Clear, Melt, Metal, and Grey into a harmonious realm of peace. In their struggle against Dr. Hate, these heroes and villains also face the task of unraveling how Amanda Waller’s rise is entwined with the ongoing crisis. The saga features guest appearances from Nubia, Dr. Mist, Red Tornado, Dead Eye, and more!
Let’s get this out of the way: Amanda Waller and Dr. Hate are integral parts of ‘Beast World’ and that is why this book is tying into that event, but the events of this issue aren’t really about ‘Beast World.’ Instead, Chuck Brown and Keron Grant are digging into the various realms of life on Earth through the Red, Green, etc, as well as digging into some mythology introduced in the New 52 “Batwing” series by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver, and establishing a new paradigm for the Black characters of the DC Universe. This issue is incredibly compressed and dense, which makes it a bit of a tough read at points, but it is also one of the most ambitious comics DC has published this year.
What makes the issue go down smoothly is the art by Keron Grant. Grant’s work taps into the chaos of this event, portraying action sequences as melees without logic or the standard ‘one bad guy runs at one good guy at a time’ mechanic. But even the sequences where characters are standing around talking – and there are a fair amount of those – look vibrant and interesting. Grant’s body language for these characters is truly special, with each character inhabiting their body in ways that you just don’t see a lot. Freedom Beast looks like he can’t sit still, Superman’s posture is always perfect, even when he’s flying or throwing a punch, Nubia has a natural grace.
And while the coloring and digital after effects can sometimes weigh down the pencils, because Grant is doing all the art here, it feels like a true expression as opposed to a colorist coming and adding more noise than the artist would like. Those elements also added to both the unique style of the piece and also the feeling of this being a fast moving train that can’t really be stopped. Brown and Grant together make a book that requires a huge information download fly by through a combination of skipping over a lot of the usual set up beats and by giving the book a real sense of momentum and energy.
Brown’s story is a little hard to follow at points, but the basics come down to this: a number of heroes get sent to the Kingdom, a realm within the DC Universe that hasn’t been fully explored in comic form but, for the purposes of this comic, is a sacred place where these characters are all deposited by Dr. Hate. The characters featured here are all Black, which is something that Brown never explains in text and, frankly, doesn’t have to. As my co-host on the DC3cast Zach Wilkerson said, if the team was all white folks, we’d never even ask that question, and he’s right. But because of Brown using DC’s characters of color, we get so many heroes that simply aren’t used enough: Val-Zod Superman from Earth 2, the David Zavimbe Batwing, Vixen, Dr. Mist, Freedom Beast, Nubia, and Black Manta from Brown’s “Aquamen.”
Continued belowThe collection of heroes alone makes this book worth a read, and Brown uses this opportunity to introduce an all-Black team of heroes into a DC Universe that currently is without a Justice League or a Teen Titans. This lineup has all the makings of a great Justice League, in the spirit of James Robinson’s run at the end of the pre-“Flashpoint” continuity, where there would be a member of each ‘family’ in the DCU – a Bat, a Super, an Amazon, a Green Lantern, a speedster, etc. With Batwing, Nubia, Val-Zod, Vixen, Jo Mullein or John Stewart, Wallace West, and Black Manta out there, you’ve basically got a 7 person JL team ready to go, not to mention all the fun characters you could add to that mix.
And honestly? That’s the biggest appeal of this book. It feels very much like a 2-3 issue miniseries trimmed down into one issue, and so a lot of the concepts are a little fuzzy and rushed, but the kernel at its center is enticing. There are far too many words on most pages, but that almost doesn’t matter because the tone and concept are so out in front and exciting. Whether or not DC does anything with this idea is unknown, but it seems like Brown and Grant wouldn’t be called in to do a one-shot like this, with only the slightest of ‘Beast World’ connection, if there wasn’t something down the road.
Final Verdict: 7.6 – A truly unique work, “Titans Beast World Waller Rising” #1 is not an essential piece of ‘Beast World,’ but should be integral to the future of the DC Universe as a whole.
