The Human Target 1

The Human Target, by Tom King and Greg Smallwood (DC)I had been waiting to read this run as a collection but had to gobble them up after it received a 2022 Eisner nomination for “Best New Series”. Greg Smallwood’s artwork is absolutely amazing (so clean). It was a shame he wasn’t nominated as well. Tom Smith can be kind of “hit or miss” with me. I didn’t particularly care for his Batman stuff or Omega Men. Strange Adventures was OK. On the other hand, I’ll stand by Mister Miracle as one of the best projects I’ve ever read (definitely worthy of its nine Eisner nominations). So where does that leave The Human Target? It’s a deep, character-driven, slow burn that we’re only halfway through. The first six issues were excellently conceived and executed. I have high hopes they Smith and Smallwood stick the landing with the second half of this series.

Tom King seems to have found his sweet spot with the 12-issue maxi-series. King also seems to enjoy doing in depth studies of lesser characters; Mister Miracle, Adam Strange and now Christopher (The Human Target) Chance. The Human Target was introduced in Detective Comics in 1953 as Fred Venable but only made two appearances. The character was brought back in 1972 with a much improved name and managed to exist on the periphery of DC comics up until today. He did get his own series in 1999 on DC’s Vertigo imprint and had a 1990 and 2010 television series, so that’s pretty good. The point of The Human Target is that he can be hired to assume the place of an assassination target and act as a human decoy. In this first issue, he’s hired to become a decoy for Lex Luthor.It looks as if Christopher Chance has found himself in a DOA situation. He’s been slipped a lethal poison and has 12 days to find his own murderer before he dies. This just happens to be the exact number of issues in this maxi-series. King even presents a single frame of each day as kind of a preview. I do recommend the 1988 film D.O.A. starring Dennis Quaid, if you can find it. I’ve never seen the original 1950 version. King may have cribbed the concept but it’s a great concept and I’m excited to read more. I also really like the retro art style of Greg Smallwood that looks like it’s from the 1950’s. Even if the story doesn’t turn out to be all that, it appears that this is going to be a really good looking series. It’s published under DC’s Black Label line for mature audiences but I’m not sure what that means since all the swearing is censored. Probably just a marketing ploy.Human Target #1 currently has an 8.9 aggregate score on ComicBookRoundup from 9 professional reviewers and an 8.4 User Rating from 27 users. That’s a pretty good start for the series. Tom King tends to be a very polarizing writer and there is one 6.0 among the professional reviews. I found that low scoring review rather useless as the reviewer clearly has issues with Tom King from his previous works. I also think it’s way too soon to be making assumptions about the direction of the story. By this point, Tom King is about the only writer at DC I’m reading. I just finished Rorschach and Strange Adventure and enjoyed both. I don’t love everything he produces (I’m looking at you Heroes in Crisis), but his success rate is very high. I get why some people really don’t like his style, but this looks like the start of a very interesting series.

A história tem um aspecto que me lembrou as histórias policiais noir, tem uma pequena introdução do personagem e suas características que foram apresentadas de forma bem fluida em meio a história, gostei de estilo dos desenhos também e os diálogos são bons. Vale a pena para pessoas que gostam de histórias noir misturadas com super heróis