Broken Frontier

I’ve always had something of a soft spot for the old pulp characters. Heroes such as the Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Avenger succeeded in walking the fine line between the exotic and the familiar, making both appear wondrously strange as a result. Without these trailblazers, modern masked heroes like Batman and Superman likely wouldn't exist in the forms we recognize today.

DC’s First Wave project attempts to update classic pulp heroes such as Doc Savage and the Avenger, creating an alternate universe where these two adventurers exist in a modern world alongside a pulp-flavored, gun-toting Batman and Will Eisner’s iconic Golden Age sensation, the Spirit. It’s an interesting idea on many levels and has the potential for some exciting, atmospheric stories. This is a world without Superman, where the crime fighters, although fantastic and extremely driven, don’t possess godlike superpowers.

Doc Savage seems to be the centerpiece of First Wave and at times, it approaches the quality such distinction would seem to warrant, but never quite attains the prize. There are some fun moments here and there and some great epic shots but at the end of the day, it just doesn’t come together into a cohesive whole.

Paul Malmont’s plot is somewhat hard to follow, the pacing choppy and jarring. He fails to adequately introduce at least one of Doc Savage’s infamous specialists in Monk, while the others are barely distinguishable from one another in dialogue and personality. Doc’s talented assistants have always individually reflected not only his vast array of disciplines and abilities but aspects of his aloof demeanor, as well. In Malmont’s clumsy hands, they feel like just another skill set.

Howard Porter’s art fails to back Malmont’s shaky script. The visuals throughout the issue feel stiff and unnatural. Part of this is due to some poor angle choices, making for some pretty grotesque three-quarter headshots; part of it feels like plain old poor rendering. In one panel, in which Doc plummets down an elevator shaft, I couldn’t tell the difference between his mouth and his chin until I turned the book upside down.

However, not everything about Doc Savage #1 was as disappointing as the book’s headliner. The back-up story features the Avenger and his colleagues in Justice, Inc., in a noirish, hauntingly illustrated mystery tale that does a far better job evoking the classic pulps than the feature presentation. Writer Jason Starr and artist Scott Hampton perfectly capture the Avenger’s peculiar tone and feel and succeed in giving a chilling voice to one of the pulp genre’s darkest and most relentless warriors. Unfortunately, their stylish little thriller isn’t enough to save an overall sub-par offering that fails to live up to the exotic perils and strange adventures that so typified the pulp era.