The Immortal Men #6 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 6, November 2018

Supposedly planned “to go to at least twelve issues and have a mega-crossover” James Tynion IV’s narrative for this sixth (and final) instalment of “The Immortal Men” sadly must have come as a bitter disappointment to its remaining 15,341 followers in September 2018, with its numerous unanswered plot threads and somewhat rushed production values. In fact, even the comic’s ending, which finishes with a panel of Batman asking the rest of his fellow Justice Leaguers what they’re going to do about the book’s titular characters now the super-group know they’re real, arguably interrupts the action mid-way through as Caden Park leads his team-mates in a desperate jump off of Kyra Arg’s now visible flying fortress whilst hotly pursued by the Hunt and doubtless a number of heavily-fanged Bloodless…

Disappointingly however, such open-endedness absolutely plagues this twenty-page periodical’s storyline, with the Diamond Gem Award-winner even starting an entirely new, unresolved scenario at the very beginning of this publication involving the Infinite Woman calling an unprecedentedly early gathering of the “Great Council of the Bear Clan” and panicking the likes of the Forever Child into meeting “at the Old Rock in one month’s time.” Such odd penmanship from an author who apparently knew well in advance of this cancelled comic’s fate proves particularly frustrating when other sequences, such as Roderick Clay’s interrogation by Director Amanda Waller, clearly run out of space just as things get interesting; “Yeah. Okay. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise to find the boy.”

Perhaps debatably therefore this book’s sole salvation can only be found in its dynamic depiction of the Immortal Men’s desperate attempt to destroy the Siege’s cloaking tower. This pulse-pounding display of pugilism genuinely provides some ‘thrill-a-minute’ shenanigans as the deceased Communion forms a truly intriguing, almost symbiotic, partnership with the Blood-Mask’s latest wearer, and helps the American student to enthusiastically pummel a fair portion of the Kill’s surrounding dog-like creatures to pieces. Add Reload’s personal duel with his former comrade-in-arms, Walter, as well Timber’s formidable show of super-human strength into the mix, and for a while at least, many bibliophiles who perused this magazine will debatably have forgiven artist Tyler Kirkham his scratchy, potentially rushed pencilling.

Storytellers: Tyler Kirkham & James Tynion IV, and Colorist: Arif Prianto & David Baron

The Immortal Men #5 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 5, October 2018

Printed just as co-creator James Tynion IV rather unsympathetically announced the series’ cancellation at the San Diego Comic-Con due to his “bigger books” potentially delaying it and him not wanting “to bring in another writer”, this perceptibly lack-lustre twenty-page periodical must have struck many in its demoralised audience as simply being printed so as to ‘set them up’ for the final instalment to “The End Of Forever”. Indeed, except for Caden Park interfacing with the Bloodmask, and resultantly discovering that the supposedly benevolent Klarn Arg only wanted him so he could callously “overwrite your mind with his”, absolutely nothing of much interest occurs within Issue Five of “The Immortal Men”.

True, Roderick Clay’s potential gun-play at a DIY-A-Bear store in Midtown Manhattan does imbue the Diamond Gem Award-winner’s narrative with a modicum of action as the former Lieutenant Colonel tries to force his way into the A.R.G.U.S. black site and is overpowered by an agent wearing a ludicrously cuddly-looking teddy bear suit. But the vast majority of this publication is disconcertingly directed towards either portraying Timber Wolf slowly burying the corpses of her numerous team-mates who failed to escape The Campus, or depicting the mind-sweeping American lead conversing with Communion in an incredibly slow-paced, word-heavy sequence; “Look, I’m not all that good at beating around the bush. You were the contingency plan. If Infinite Woman incapacitated him, he planned to pass his consciousness into you.”

Unhappily, not even the sixth escape attempt by Reload from the House of Conquest generates much excitement either, as his determined flight through the first house of immortals in order to destroy its blood engines and “take the entire fortress down” is shown to be a futile endeavour within the space of a pair of panels, courtesy of his ineffective progress being monitored on a gigantic surveillance screen by Kyra Arg herself. However, what Patrick Kowalski’s efforts do produce though is enough material with which artist Tyler Kirkham can ‘pad out’ the New Yorker’s plot in order for Ghost Fist to finally teleport the Immortal Men to the Vietnam War veteran’s location as part of a “foolhardy rescue mission”, and dangerously position the heroes in direct conflict with the Hunt, the Kill and a plethora of bloodless.

Storytellers: Tyler Kirkham & James Tynion IV, and Colorist: Arif Prianto

The Immortal Men #4 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 4, September 2018

Pleasingly providing a look at a time “before common tongues and calendars, when Man was new, and the world was still taking shape”, this fourth instalment to James Tynion IV’s “The End Of Forever” storyline finally gave its readers an explanation as to just how the Immortal Man and Infinite Woman gained their super-powers 50,000 years ago. But whilst this exposition concerning the cave-dwelling Bear Clan makes for an entertaining start to the “DC Comics” storyline, it is delightfully soon overshadowed by the sheer sense-shattering shenanigans of the New Yorker’s modern-day based script, which features some stunning fight sequences between the likes of Timber and the Bloodless.

Indeed, the “member of the native Menominee Nation” initially takes centre stage with great gusto as she grows in size “to reach the height of a house” and with a smile upon her face, begins chopping Kyra Arg’s demonic minions to pieces, courtesy of Babe the Blue Axe. These early scenes, competently pencilled by Utah-born artist Tyler Kirkham, really are a joy to behold, and both demonstrate just how formidable a team member the fur-wearing Keshena Carpentier is, as well as provide an opportunity for the American author to detail her early 19th Century origin story; “The strange tale would carry east, to Philadelphia. To the Immortal Man. He would come to tell her that legends are shaped by great actions. And that as Timber she would shape many legends.”

Incredibly however, the majority of this twenty-page periodical actually predominantly focuses upon Klarn Arg rather than his House of Action, and in a demonstration of wielding a pair of laser swords which would truly put the likes of George Lucas’ Darth Maul to shame, this ongoing title’s audience are given a mind-blowing glimpse as to what perfecting “every fighting skill into an intimate art form" over "tens of thousands of years” looks like. In fact, the Immortal Man’s ability to best an entire army of savage, heavily-teethed Bloodless one-on-one makes for an incredible piece of action-packed story-telling, and only the epic confrontation’s conclusion, which results in his near-defeated sister cowardly skulking up behind him to fatally skewer her sibling upon her overly-large blade, probably drew a bigger intake of breath from the reader.

Storytellers: Tyler Kirkham & James Tynion IV, and Colorist: Arif Prianto

The Immortal Men #3 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 3, August 2018

Many of this publication’s audience probably strongly related to Caden Park’s predicament when he awakes at the start of this comic from what the teenager clearly hoped had been a fevered nightmare in which he’d seen his murdered parents transformed into multi-fanged bestial killers. For whilst James Tynion IV’s script undeniably contains plenty of exposition concerning its plethora of cast members, most notably a condensed origin of Ghost Fist and an intriguing indication as to the complex relationship between former friends Reload and the Hunt, it also disconcertingly contains very little in the way of action, plot progression or escape…

Indeed, arguably all this twenty-page periodical provided its readers in June 2018 was a seemingly endless series of dialogue-heavy diatribes, which whilst occasionally interesting, such as Roderick Clay’s miraculous transportation into the near future, increasingly gets ‘bogged down’ with weighty word balloon after cram-packed text box. Frustratingly, to make matters worse for the optics though, a large portion of these conversations don’t even use the same font or colour scheme, and doubtless caused any perusing bibliophile to painfully squint at the ghastly red on black background speeches of The Batman Who Laughs or the Infinite Woman’s merging mix of orange upon orange...

Even Patrick Kowalski’s incarceration within the Siege holding cell suffers as a result of Carlos M. Mangual’s diabolical lettering, and scimitar-wielding gaoler’s purple-pigmented stylised font. True, it’s easy to understand the basic message behind the scene considering that their ‘flashback’ to soldiering in Vietnam shoulder-to-shoulder appears so very similar to the history behind “Marvel Worldwide” characters Wolverine and Sabretooth. But even so, it still takes something of a patient eye to slowly wade through all of its lengthy discourse; “If we don’t stoke the fire of the Eternal War now, they won’t be able to fight when it counts. Saving the World is no longer a future endeavour. It must happen now.”

Unfortunately, little solace can debatably be taken from the pencilling on show within Issue Three of “The Immortal Men”, despite Ryan Benjamin clearly trying to adopt every storyboarding trick in the book to try and liven up its sedentary-paced narrative. Irregular-size panels, single splashes, letter-box sequences and double-page layouts are all utilised by the American artist in an effort to imbue this title’s figures with some dynamism, yet nothing can seemingly save Tynion IV’s lack-lustre “Bloodless” penmanship.

Storytellers: Ryan Benjamin & James Tynion IV, and Inker: Richard Friend

The Immortal Men #2 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 2, July 2018

Despite giving its readers with some modicum of tantalisingly slow exposition concerning “the last of the Immortal Men”, James Tynion IV’s script for this second instalment to his “The End Of Forever” story-arc simply doesn’t stop providing its audience with sense-shattering action-packed shenanigans until its final panel, and even then the twenty-page periodical frustratingly stops mid-way through a captivatingly concentrated chase sequence. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more intense comic book reading experience than this “New Age of Heroes” publication, as the “emerging meta-human named Caden Park” runs for his very life from slavering demonic dog-creatures, a truly terrifying cold-blooded murderer who seemingly delights in the sadistic nature of killing innocents with a blade, and a missile strike which “breaks every immortal treaty, going back six thousand years.”

Fortunately though, none of this pulse-pounding pace actually ever gets overly-tiring, even if its intensity could arguably leave its readers as physically out of breath as the plot’s “point-of-view protagonist”. The New York City-born writer appears to know precisely when to weave some of his more sedentary scenes into the publication’s furious mix, and actually uses them, such as those based within the invisible Realm of Conquest, to help clarify what the various cast member’s rationalisation is for their animated antics; “My brother is playing some unknown game. It is imperative that we beat him at it before it’s too late.”

Perhaps this book’s most surprising and enjoyable highlight however, is the emergence of Roderick Clay as an innovatively determined protector of the Park family. Having left A.R.G.U.S. to take a more “cushy private-sector gig” and “never have to deal with super-powered freaks and monsters again”, the pistol-toting private investigator not only ‘rescues’ his employer’s son from the ‘clutches’ of the Immortal Man by crashing his car into the mysterious being’s anachronistic taxi cab, but also then goes on to make a last stand against a quartet of The Kill’s ferociously-fanged Bloodless.

Just as impressive is the transfer of pencilling responsibilities between this title’s co-creator, “DC Publisher and master artist” Jim Lee and Ryan Benjamin. The “digital production” illustrator somehow manages to provide Issue Two of “The Immortal Men” with a unifyingly strong imitation of the Korean American’s widely-regarded style, and resultantly the transition from the title’s previous cliff-hanger where Caden was supposedly facing a gory death in the jaws of the Infinite Woman’s savage pets, smoothly flows into this comic’s subsequent opening, which portrays the terrified young man plunging headlong through a spookily deserted underground tube line.

Storytellers: Ryan Benjamin & James Tynion IV, and Inker: Richard Friend

The Immortal Men #1 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 1, June 2018

Originally planned for a December 2017 release as “part of the New Age of DC Heroes line”, this twenty-page periodical would seem to have suffered a series of delays before the Burbank-based publishing company’s “Direct Channel” retail newsletter finally confirmed it had been re-solicited for April instead. However, no matter the reason for its delay, with one rumour being that co-creator Jim Lee subsequently signed “on to illustrate a Brian Michael Bendis’ story for… Action Comics #1000”, it certainly doesn’t seem to have affected the quality of either its writing or artwork. In fact, for some of this book’s younger bibliophiles they’ll doubtless be the enjoyably exhilarating feeling of following in a specially-gifted super-team’s footsteps for the first time and the excitement which comes with the recruitment to their roster of someone who will supposedly “save the world”; a somewhat familiar sentiment to those who experienced Chris Claremont’s opening instalment of “New Mutants” way back in 1983…

Fortunately, such obvious comparisons to “Marvel Comics” mutants and Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is arguably a strength to James Tynion IV’s script for Issue One of “The Immortal Men”, as it allows the New Yorker to consistently wrong-foot those within this comic’s older audience who unwisely believe that they’ve seen “The End Of Forever” all before. Foremost of these compelling contradictions is the fact that the Campus, “the Fifth house of the Immortals” and “one mile beneath Philadelphia”, has been utterly destroyed, along with hundreds of the refuge’s occupants. In addition, the remaining team members, whilst clearly a formidably-strong band of super-powered heroes, are alarmingly already on the run for their very lives from a foe whose seemingly easy ability to kill their kind make her appear awfully omnipotent.

Such ‘hooks’ really help immerse the reader into the narrative, and one can’t help but feel their pulse pound as Jim Lee dynamically pencils Ghost Fist leading the Immortal Man’s shell-shocked survivors headlong down “a much different sort of secret cavern” in a desperate escape bid, whilst the Infinite Woman, the Hunt and their multiple-fanged, dire wraith-like monsters track them down. Certainly, when coupled with Caden Park’s emergence as a meta-human, this all-pervading sense of persecution and flight makes it hard to put the publication down until it ends with a wickedly delightful cliff-hanger on board a claustrophobic underground train carriage; “I think you know the answer. I think you’ve always known we’re the Immortal Men. Now get up and fight.”

Storytellers: Jim Lee, Ryan Benjamin & James Tynion IV, and Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual