Michael Holt is the third smartest men in the world and also the superhero known as Mister
Terrific. In the old DC continuity, he was the leader of the Justice Society of America. But
the JSA doesn't exist in the NEW DC Universe. So where does that leave MISTER TERRIFIC?
In a pretty AWFUL comic book!
So we begin with Mister Terrific high in the skies of London fighting some guy in a power suit
while the crowd looks on. Right off the bat, the AWFUL dialogue begins with one of the
bystanders commenting that Mister T. has a "nice bum". REALLY!? If this the direction this book
is going to go in then it's bad from the get-go. He defeats the bad guy with some good old
"Yankee ingenuity"(yes...he does say that!). One of the spectators asks who he is. Mister
Terrific: Some people call me the third smartest man in the world...a simple 'thanks black guy
for saving us from a homicidal lunatic wearing weaponized body armor'".
Good Lord...that's really AWFUL!
After a quick birthday celebration, we get the flashback: how Michael's wife and unborn son
died, how he was going to kill himself but got visited by his son who never was and that
changed everything. He is telling this tale to Karen Starr who, in the OLD DCU, was Power Girl.
Apparently she's just a businesswoman now and is going to be Michael's date for the night.
Meanwhile, some poor guy is eating lunch, gets possessed, harshly insults his waitress and
proceeds to go out and kill some homeless guy by snapping his neck. Michael gets called in to
the case and discovers this guy has been suddenly jotting down numeric equations that "would
give Stephen Hawking a headache."
Our hero heads back to his T-Sanctuary to do a little more investigating. It's a good thing he likes mysteries, or so he tells us. Later, there's this party and Michael meets a Presidential candidate who professes: "I thought you were a liberal, pinko-loving atheist." PINKO-LOVING? Holy you-know-what! Does this get any worse.
Yeah...it does.
Karen gets offended by a woman who has been eyeing her all night and here's that dialogue. get
your barf bags ready.
Karen: I don't want to start a turf war"
Woman: It's not that."
Karen: I get it. It's because I'm a WHITE GIRL isn't it?
Woman: And I'm a BLACK WOMAN which means I'm built to handle things you can't even imagine, or never had to.
Yeah...really: that's the dialogue. And now I'M OFFENDED. She goes on to explain it's because
Starr is rich. But after that exchange, who cares. Michael takes the Senator back to his lab to show him his latest project and then flips out, feeling he has to deal with "a hypocrite". he lets loose with one of his machines and proceeds to threaten to kill the Senator.
Wow-another DCnU book with another dumb cliffhanger.
I really think this book is AWFUL. Have I said that before? First, the good: Gianluca Gugliotta's artwork is nice in an Image styled sort of way.
Thus ends the good.
Eric Wallace is not a total newcomer to comics. He wrote TITANS and FINAL CRISIS: INK, neither of which I read. If they were anything like this, I'm glad I saved my money. The plot does
nothing for me: people are being possessed and turned into homicidal maniacs. The end. Oh, and some REALLY AWFUL, REALLY JUVENILE and REALLY RACIST dialogue thrown in.
The Michael Holt I knew was relatively humble as a leader of one of the great superhero teams. This guy, like I am finding MANY of the DCnU heroes are, is just way too full of himself, between hubris and self pity. I don't care about his back story, I don't care about his current story and really don't want anything to do with his future endeavors. Unless it has to do with going back to where he came from before the reboot.
I can not NOT recommend this book enough.
BTW: the hooded woman is in the right side of the second panel of page 4. And even she looks embarrassed to be in this book.
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