First off the art sucks, that can't even be debated. I'm not the most skilled artist. It looks like I did the art for this series. Most of the covers are great but once you open the book it's just like "C'mon man," this is a major publication. The art is sloppy and both poorly colored and drawn, the characters all dress like they're out of the 80s and Michael Holt is a billionaire Olympian wearing ill-fitting dirty brown suits every day. Black men always look at each other's hair lines, I looked at Mr. Terrific's hairline a lot and it was always fucked up. I don't mean that in the fact that it was crooked or he didn't have a razor cut. I mean there was no hairline sometimes. I mean the artists behind this may have never seen black hair. This is a comic with a ton of black character so why are they all the same color? I'm not joking it's like the colorist picked their favorite brown colored pencil and said "If I make them all this color it'll work out great." Black people come in a lot of shades besides brown #43, unless it's this comic. Also, I think they may have overdid it a bit on the black characters. I know he's a black superhero but according to this comic Los Angeles might just be 90% black, or Mr. Terrific only goes to black neighborhoods.
The story was starting to turn into something good before it ended. Michael had picked a successor for his company. He had finally been able to admit he was in love again but blew it. He was debating on if it was okay to kill villains or not. Then everything got rushed into the last two issues and he was rushed off to Earth -2, that's a good thing, the writers over there have a better idea of who he is. The main story was great but there were a few problems and I don't think they actually understood who Mr. Terrific is.
Mr. Terrific has always fought against racism as well as crime, but they pushed the limits here. Sure he fought the KKK in the past but they've got him as a black supremacist. Being black wasn't even the worst handled aspect of his character. It was the fact that he was an Atheist. He's always been an Atheist, that's nothing new. The problem is they turned him into an anti-theist preacher. Mr. Terrific has always been an atheist that says "I believe in science, not God prove me wrong and I'll go to church." In fact one of his biggest story lines involved him attempting to understand various religions after a near death experience. Not this time around, this time he's giving aliens three page lectures on why Gods don't exist. Race and religion aren't the only social issues the comic struggles with. In fact it struggles with a lot of them and that seems to be the problem outside of the main plot. We have to deal with Jamal's absentee father, transgender aliens, abortion, the death penalty, rape, illegal immigration and just about everything else you can think of. It's as if the writers were saying "If he's so terrific lets see him handle every social issue facing America, Earth and galaxys unknown. One of the reasons I like characters like Mr. Terrific, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Martian Manhunter and others is because they would tackle social issues in their comics. The thing is, they do it one at a time, this time they threw the entire book at Mr. Terrific and it left a good story muddy and convoluted.
Is there anything good I can really say about this series? Yes, there is. Mr. Terrific got an updated hero uniform in this. I like Mr. Terrific but it always seemed strange he was fighting crime in a leather jacket and skinny jeans, had to actually change into his uniform and was wearing a turtle neck. He's a gold medal winning gymnast and they gave him a costume that reflected that. He also doesn't have to run and find a place to change, since it's linked to his consciousness now and he can change it at will. Well done with that. Not sure why they added the tattoos.
I like Mr. Terrific and he's always going to be one of my favorite characters just because of the way he routinely punks Batman. This series is not cool, they attempt to turn every aspect of his character up to ten and it doesn't work. He's always been a character who more reserved than what he's made out to be. In the past he would tell his teammates "Oh, I'm an Atheist, but I'll still come to your son's Bar Mitzvah because it matters to you." Now he's yelling "GOD IS A LIE," to random people and looking like a nutjob. He was a man who used science to make the world a better place after his wife died. Now he's contemplating suicide because all his experiments to bring her back failed. He was a man who had casual sex with various women. Now he only sleeps with white women because he hates white men and wants to get back at them by breaking white women's hearts. I'm not even making that up.
It seems in a rush to capitalize on a character who had a small but loyal fanbase they lost everything the character was. They tried to make him edgier and it didn't work. Michael Holt has never cared that he's called the third smartest man alive. Now he's proclaiming that he is the smartest man alive and daring anyone to prove him other wise. It's great that he got a confidence boost but it seems he lost himself in that confidence. As much as I love Mr. Terrific I can not recommend this series at all. If you want to get a sense of who Mr. Terrific is, check out the Earth-2 series. He's a small player for most of the series because he's a transplant, but they actually have a sense of who he is.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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This was a damn interesting article. Thank you for this!
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