Black Hammer of late has been jumping far into the past, flinging itself into the future, meandering through other timelines, and asking what ifs? But finally, we’re placed relatively back into the normal timeline of our heroes, in this case Lucy Weber’s (the daughter of the original Black Hammer) who then became the new Black Hammer and helped save the heroes lost to the cabin. Speed forward 20 years, and Weber is married, a mother, and has hung up the mantle of being a hero. How well is family life going for Lucy? Well… not so poorly that she’s willing to don the mantle of Black Hammer again.

But this story is called Black Hammer: Reborn. Well, Lucy has children, including a daughter that doesn’t like to listen to her mother. Can you see the conflict a-brewin’?

This first issue is told with honesty and wit. Like many of our Black Hammer characters, Lucy is a character lost in the sadness of her own story, and it will be about how one can change, retake, or pass on that story. It will be about family and heroes, like Black Hammer has been from the very beginning.

In just a few years’ time, Jeff Lemire – with the help of some of the greatest talents in the comic industry – has fashioned a world that already feeds the love of some of the great superhero universes but with a freshness, vitality, and understanding of what makes superhero comic books great. It isn’t simply about the superheroics, but also the personal lives of those superheroes and the friction created between them. Lemire has given us some incredibly rich conflict between hard reality and the fantastical. Caitlin Yarsky is really up to the task of bringing both of these worlds together. The little moments of humanity she shows are wonderful, and the super heroic moments are beautifully absurd and weird. In a single stellar image when one character berates Lucy for not dealing with a strange phenomenon right behind them, those two worlds clash with the most amazing dissonance; it is brilliant.

Black Hammer: Reborn looks to be another winner.

Creative Team: Jeff Lemire (writer), Caitlin Yarsky (artist), Dave Stewart (colorist), Nate Piekos of Blambot (letterer), Daniel Chabon (editor), Chuck Howitt and Konner Knudsen (assistant editor), Ethan Kemberling (design), Josie Christensen (digital art technician), Mike Richardson (publisher)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
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