With his influential work on Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Batman and Justice League of America in the 1970s, few know the DC Comics world better than Dennis O’Neill. This is why DC UNIVERSE: HELLTOWN – the third in the series of original novels – is the best and most accessible yet.
HELLTOWN refers to Hub City, a rundown, crime-ridden town to which homeless drifter Charles Victor Szasz comes seeking answers about his past. Lucking into a two-bit reporter gig at the local radio station, he immediately crosses paths with Hub City’s corrupt mayor and befriends his landlord, an old man with a knack for invention.
When Szasz sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong, goons are hired to off him. One of them is the female martial-arts expert Lady Shiva. For whatever reason, she kills her fellow assassins instead and takes Szasz to safety … and the kung-fu tutelage of one Richard Dragon. For a year, Szasz trains and transforms himself into a stronger person. With his new skills comes a new identity: that of The Question, a blank-faced do-gooder clad in a press hat and trench coat.
A sinister plot unfolds involving Hub City’s children, and The Question – despite inexperience in such things – resolves to play crimefighter. He gets help from the alter ego of his benefactor, some rich guy named Bruce Wayne.
In contrast to the two DC UNIVERSE novels before it, HELLTOWN benefits from a comparatively realistic plotline. Shorn of sci-fi leanings, its villains are a politician and a preacher; if you’ve checked the headlines lately, such positioning may resonate. Being an origin tale, it doesn’t even kick into superhero gear until the final third. Thus, HELLTOWN is a grounded detective story rather than a fantasy, and O’Neill is the perfect person to tackle it. His experience in scripting comics lends itself well to punchy dialogue and well-described action (even if it, like so many of its brethren, slackens the pace toward the end). Mostly, though, the story pulls you in because the Szasz character is so intriguing and rich.
Speaking of rich, the cover from FABLES artist James Jean makes HELLTOWN worth the purchase alone, but O’Neill’s narrative hits it out of the park. –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
Discuss it in our forums.
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• DC UNIVERSE: INHERITANCE by Devin Grayson
• DC UNIVERSE: LAST SONS by Alan Grant
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }