Starman Omnibus

[bryant]

The Starman Omnibus is awesome. Probably less awesome if you’re not a fan. DC’s going to do six volumes, which are slated to include every issue of Starman plus all the related material (e.g., the Shade miniseries and so on).

The art’s still gorgeous, if less surprising than it was at the time of publication. Beautiful art deco cityscapes, excellent use of shadow and darkness. Tony Harris was so good. It benefits from the high quality of the hardcover’s paper, too.

And there’s nothing wrong with the story. James Robinson notes in the afterword that he was after the sort of weirdness/superhero fusion that early Vertigo had, before the editoral dictate to separate Vertigo from mainstream DC. He nailed it. The additional dollop of DC continuity fetish that he brought to the table probably wasn’t strictly speaking necessary, but I’m not sure it hurts.

Five more volumes to come, at around 18-20 comic book issues per volume. Not too bad. I’m hearing DC is doing omnibus-style volumes for other books as well; good call.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.

Comments

[head58.livejournal.com]

Have you read the whole series before? Unfortunately the art shifts from Tony Harris to Peter Snjelberg (?) somewhere along the way and it loses some of the art deco stuff, but it gains in depth of expression, I think. And the story is just great all the way to the end. A couple of little missteps here and there, but overall fantastic.

[bryant]

Yep, read it when it was coming out. It'll be supernice to be able to reread the whole thing.

[head58.livejournal.com]

When the did the trades they shuffled some issues around and pulled a lot of the Times Past one-shots out into their own volume. If they're not doing that with the Absolute, it may well be worth picking up to me.

[bryant]

They are not doing that with the Omnibus. One Talking With Jack, two Times Past included.

Plus the egotistical James Robinson text bits from the back of the first couple of issues.

[head58.livejournal.com]

Dammit!