RADIANT BLACK #1-7 comic review - Invincible But Without the Homophobia

(Reviewed by Melody Werner)

Radiant Black is a 2021 Tokusatsu-inspired superhero comic written by Kyle Higgins (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), illustrated by Marcelo Costa (Self/Made) with various colorists/color assistants, and lettered by Becca Carey (Redlands). Published by Image Comics, it is set to be the flagship of a new shared universe, separate from the tenuous one that contains Spawn, Invincible, Savage Dragon, ShadowHawk, Dynamo 5, FireBreather, and a lot of other superhero comics from the 90's and oughts that only me and five others care about (that's in regards to stuff like FireBreather, not Spawn, ofc). As someone working on a new shared superhero universe myself (which I shan't advertise here, cuz fuck self promotion, I'm ass at it anyway), you might think that I would have some sort of bias to slag this competitor off. But if you're in comics, it's safe to say that you're in it for the love of the craft, cuz there's not much money in them now. And I sure am in love with the craft of Radiant Black.

Self/Made had exemplary art, so I'm not surprised that Radiant Black looks so stellar too. Costa's work definitely has more Ryan Ottley-isms here in the human faces, or at least I'm detecting them more, but he manages to make things stand tall on their own--and, hey, I adore Ottley's style, and Costa's take suits this book handsomely. I really like how Radiant Black's eyes do the Spider-Man style curling and shit, it's adorable. Costa has some help on the coloring, depending on the issue, but it's unilaterally quite spectacular, so kudos to all of them. Meanwhile, Carey is an outstanding letterer and logo designer, whose lettering works just as well with the panoramic scale of a classy superhero soap box comic. They say that you don't notice good lettering unless you're specifically looking for it--I disagree, my favorite letterer as of now is Aditya Bidikar, whose lettering (especially in Isola) shows the artistic power a letterer can bring to the table--but Carey's lettering is more supplementary, and there's nothing wrong with that if it's a good job.

As much as I love Invincible to death and it inspires my own work greatly, I am overjoyed to see a spiritual successor which discards the casual homophobia and random slurs Invincible had.

(Before some dweeb gets on my case, here's an aside to say that I'm obviously not trying to "cAnCeL" Invincible. I think as an adult you cannot just passively consume media without being critical of its more pernicious aspects, even if that's just thinking those criticisms to yourself. You can enjoy a comic as classic as Invincible while acknowledging that 2000's era "hut gay, flying with someone is gay kek" jokes from straight people are: 1) casually homophobic, 2) not funny, 3) in fact actually quite cringey, 4) adolescent, and 5) liable to aging like shit, as those jokes have already, and will only grow more cringe-inducing. I could write a whole nother sidebar on how Invincible using the r-slur for no reason unnerved me as a disabled person, but any gormless culture warriors reading won't care about nuance anyway and will already be furiously dweebing away at their keyboards--and I just wanna talk about Radiant Black more instead, for now.)

Instead, Radiant Black zeroes in on this all-too-real, vicious cycle of poverty that I know a lot of people will get hit the freight truck that is its honest depiction. It's that dash of Kamen Raiders bombast that keeps RB teetering on the line between abject horror and fun comic book nonsense. No matter how hard Radiant Black can throw things, he's still in a chokehold of thousands of dollars of debt. And a lot of the time, you can't even have a mental breakdown over it, because then someone'll see it, ask about it, and you don't want to immediately open up those wounds again so you bottle it all up. It's a biting depiction that I don't think Marvel or DC could publish.

Now, I like to gush about things, but let's talk about some things I disagree with this book on so far. I'm not gOiNg To DoCk PoInTs OvEr It, I just think thoughtful discussions of comics aren't all too common, and I'd like for that to change. So I'm an anarchist, and one theme of RB thus far that I don't fuck with is its reification of the law (in case me saying reification didn't out me as pinko scum enough). This is a common underpinning of superhero comics, absolutely--I get that this is not the first superhero comic to do this, and it sure as hell won't be the last. But, I dunno, any media after last year that just treats cops as "that's how it be" will never not irk me. That doesn't go for just comics, I hold them to the same standard as any other art form. Again, I don't blame Radiant Black for not being, like, the Rage Against the Machine of Tokusatsu-inspired comics (that even sounds preposterous), and I don't hold it against media for having sucky themes; unless it's Your Highness being weirdly pro-slavery or something that makes me go like, "Um, why did you make the slave the villain?" Abysmal themes in abysmal media get shot out of a cannon.

If you haven't already read Radiant Black up to a certain point (you'll know it when you know it, trust me), I will warn you that you should probably not look at the covers for later issues--lest ye be spoiled. Unless you don't care about spoilers, in which case the spoiler is that the black hole which gives Radiant Black his powers is in fact Uncle Ben's soul. This explains why Marvel has yet to be able to ruin Ben's death by bringing him back to life permanently--he already escaped to another shared universe! If you finished that last sentence, I'd like to invite you to laugh at everyone else who dipped the fuck out as soon as they read "the spoiler is...." I don't spoil in my reviews, unless I hate what I'm reviewing or if I hate you specifically enough to live edit the review right as I know you're reading it. Jokes aside, this comic takes some turns that you're not going to expect, and I have to applaud the tenacity. I know I tend to be bad at following ongoing comics, but I have to know where this one goes, 100%.

Now here are going to be some imperceptibly small spoilers for real (I lied before, go ahead and read it ICYMI), so either buckle in for the most obvious so-called twist ever, or dip like the discerning COWARD that you are: the red one... is womz. Yes, people still keep falling for the Metroid thing, but I had the intuition. Anyway, I have to "spoil" that because I am going to use a page from Radiant Black #6 which focuses on her, as it has a guest team, and this page gives her Radiant form breasts despite that being off-model, I am just now realizing. I kinda have to tell you that this is a good issue that isn't worth skipping if, you know, I'm going to make my case that RB #1-7 is phenomenal. Without going too deep into it, this issue is co-written by Higgins & Darko Lafuente, illustrated by Cherish Chen & Miquel Muerto, and lettered by Carey. It cleverly reinforces the themes that Radiant Black as a series tackles, of being ensnared by debts. Though not as fun as the other issues, due to having a more somber tone, it contextualizes Radiant Red, who by now is a fascinating character that I want to know more about. If we get more detours like this issue, I hope they can bring the A-game this well. Chen & Muerto really pull out all of the stops for the art, it's very comicky and colorful, and I love it, breasts being off-model aside.

We all know that gushing about a comic this early in is folly. Comics are one of the few mediums I know of where they can just plummet into a chasm, like Alex + Ada going from charming slow-burn romance to emotional manipulation porn (not literal porn, mind you; porn as in like "misery porn" or "torture porn") that frames the manipulated as stupid for being uncomfortable with shagging the sexbot that was built for him after she gains her sentience and a co-dependence on him. You can never know what's around the corner. Especially with a comic like Radiant Black, that isn't afraid to throw a curveball. I'll definitely reappraise this when it gets further along and I have more time to consider potential aisles of critique. But right now, I'm loving the hell out of it, and I'm teetering on the edge on whether to give this a 9.5 or a 10 right now. And I'm thinking to myself, when the next issue drops, is there another comic that'd be atop it in the proverbial pile (as I'm a digital heretic)? And the answer to that is no, because The Autumnal is finished and I can't get a new issue of that. So, will this probably be in at least my top 3 of 2021? Yeah, probably. I think this is just about as good as a superhero comic can be. Meaning, yeah, at least right now the first seven issues will get a 10/10 too.

Masterpiece

Summary:

Radiant Black is majorly fun, but it's also bold enough to not let you rest on your laurels as a reader.