Reviewing Black Hops 5: The crossover!
Reviewing Black Hops X Kamen America X Soulfinder
As a rule, all of my comic reviews include critiques, but this is one of those rare comics that are so well done, I really had to reach! Of the many “Kamenality” books written in the Kamen America and Black Hops series, the Black Hops 5 crossover book tops the list, and also sets the stage for much to come in this universe.
Be warned, this review contains spoilers!
Highlights
Jersey Devil Premise
Nowadays “subverting expectations” is a dirty word, but BH5 subverts that expectation by, well, subverting our expectations in a good way.
The book covers a mission that puts Soulfinder 79, Kamen Victory, and the “Spec hops” team on a mission to capture the Jersey Devil, before the perennial villain Apex Moth gets hold of the Devil first. Since we’re talking about a largely Catholic team setting out against a literal devil, we would assume they must be going to destroy it, or otherwise its a purely antagonistic encounter. But what we see instead is surprising touching, even inspiring. This particular Devil is in fact a human, and one who longed for a salvation that begins in this story.
Balanced crossover
A serious concern with crossovers is how the characters will work together, whether each will be “balanced” in the big picture, or if one character will either dominate or end up as a fifth wheel.
In this case, the air time and character moments were all pretty balanced. Everyone had a reason to be there, everyone contributed in one way or another. And all the characters had chemistry appropriate to the story.
Further, as I’ll discuss in the next section, the themes of both the Kamenality books and the Soufinder books found their way into the story, which again is something quite rare
“Queuing up” events
This is mainly a technical matter in the writing, but its something so well done I had to bring it up. “Queueing up” means setting up events so that when a key moment or surprise takes place, the reader is prepared and can enjoy the maximum effect.
There are multiple cases of this phenomenon in Black Hops 5, but this one stood out. Early in the Book we see Soulfinder 79 with a costume upgrade in the form of the Chi Rho jacket. Vicki asks him, and we get a bit of information about the symbol’s history. It doesn’t seem to go anywhere at first.
Separate from the symbol, we also start hearing about “backup” that’s coming. There’s a good deal of action that takes place before the help comes and they’re on the ropes, and I have to admit I had no idea who it could be. But we knew they were coming.
And speaking of one the ropes. We get this exchange between Apex Moth and Soulfinder 79, with Moth boasting “I amass an army of clawing horrors… They send a cleric with trinkets and talismans!” This ties together both the normal Black Hops stories around Apex Moth’s army of monsters, and the spiritual dimension of Soulfinder (covered here). Further, its the last possible moment for the help to arrive, you can feel everything converging into what’s about to come on the next page!
And boy, does it!
If someone asked me to teach a class about writing comics, I would tell them to study this book to learn about “queuing up” events. There are other good books in the Kamen America and Black Hops series, but BH5 specifically handles this aspect of the writing so well.
What could be better
Sylvia’s distance
Of the crossover characters, Sylvia came across as the weakest character in the set, in the sense of “she’s here because we need the Victory Siphon.” You pick it up in a couple of scenes where she uses flight to get away from the rest of the group during dialog moments. And in “Act 2” dialog a number of her lines could have been given to someone else.
However, in the beginning and the end we got some good coverage of the relationship between Sylvia and Vicki. The healing in that relationship was great to see, and it added significance to Sylvia being there in ways that couldn’t be achieved by other characters. So, this concern resolved itself at the end.
What happened to Mimic Nautilus?
Maybe its personal preference, but I think Mimic Nautilus was done dirty when given a cartoony style in this book. It just didn’t convey the same character as his earlier Black Hops iterations. Until he got into a fight with the Jersey Devil. Then we got to see the Nautilus we know and love!
What’s next?
So much to speculate on… but I’d like to hone in on one easily-overlooked development.
What’s Hudson worried about?
Something I’ve come to appreciate about the writing in Kamen America is that very little is ever written by accident. When something’s out there, you know the writer is telegraphing important information. And given Agent Hudson’s concerns here, along with Carly making a blunder with her cell phone in Black Hops 4, we see an ongoing problem with Carly being negligent. Negligent enough that Agent Hudson sees her as a risk.
Kamen America readers also see it with the ongoing relationship between Carly and Vicki.I haven’t seen this plot thread discussed often, and I do think we should start looking at how it ties several Kamenality books together. This has to be going somewhere, Carly’s going to be careless and let someone down, and I think its going to be a make-or-break moment for multiple teams in these stories.
What do you think is coming next?
Black Hops 5 was a big, dense, and substantial read, and this review only begins to get into everything about it. If you’ve read it, I’d love to know what you found interesting and what you think is happening next in this series.
Tell me what you think in the comments :)