One of the most contentious points of the entire relaunch thus far has been the induction of Wildstorm characters into the mainstream DC milieu. While some have embraced it as another step in DC’s longstanding tradition of taking abandoned characters and giving them a shiny new coat of paint and a good home, others have felt that it undermines what the DCU is all about to feature characters like Grifter and Deathblow alongside Superman and Batman. Besides Nathan Edmonson’s surprisingly excellent early run on Grifter, though, the introduction of Helspont in this week’s issue of Superman is the strongest argument for the inclusion of these characters I’ve yet seen.
That’s not to say that his introduction is really all that special when you get right down to it. Supes gets teleported to his secret mountain hideaway, Helspont makes a few portentous comments about the state of the DCU cosmos (including a reference to New Genesis and Apokolips, which got me thinking – I would love to see Keith Giffen take on a New-52-ized run on New Gods!), and Big Blue tells him to piss off. Brief punching ensues.
The big draw for this issue is twofold – its a great jumping on point for new readers (as are most of the # 7 issues), and it sports the shiny new creative team of Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens – although its hard to call them “new” with a straight face, as both of them have as much experience with Superman as anybody. Jurgens pencils look the same as they always have, so if you dig his art, expect to not be disappointed. Giffen’s trademark wit is as sharp as ever, although this issue doesn’t give it much chance to shine. Its worth noting that this is not retro-Giffen, as was recently seen in the now-cancelled OMAC, nor is it comedy-Giffen, made famous by Ambush Bug and the original Justice League International. This is a little more straight-laced, down-to-business, ‘I’m-writing-Superman-now-so-I-have-to-act-professional’ Giffen, which is not at all a bad thing – its a side of him that desperately needs to be shown after the commercially disastrous, criminally underappreciated OMAC.
One other thing worth noting here, is the interesting choice of making Helspont a villain for Superman, rather than for, say, Grifter or Voodoo. Superman is an alien. Everyone knows this, although its not something we often think about. He wants to be one of the guys, and he regularly saves the world, so hey – one of the guys it is. But at the end of the day, he was born on some distant rock you and I will never see, and that fact is the reason he’s so different from us. But that’s ok, really – because Superman is a nice alien. Now, we’ve certainly had plenty of other bad aliens come along to menace Superman – The likes of Braniac, Darkseid, Zod, and Mongul come to mind. But with none of those did we really get the classic trope of the alien invader. Braniac’s alien-ness has been played up a few times, but always as the lone individual. Only occasionally does he even have his robo-army to help out. Helspont, on the other hand, is the ruler of the Daemonites, and they, Mr. Mulder, have been here a very long time. The new status quo for the DCU has the Daemonites poised to become a major force to be reckoned with, and introducing Helspont specifically as a Superman villain sparks ideas for a mega-event-crossover-of-the-month that I actually wouldn’t dread reading. When’s the last time THAT happened?
