After signing at a comic book convention, Unbelievable Unteens artist Jane Ito finds herself visited by one of the characters from her own creation — but was it her own creation? Were the Unteens an actual school of teenaged misfit superheroes who battled supervillains under the lead of the mysterious Dr. Miles Moniker? And if so, who wiped their memories and why? As Jane’s world is turned upside down and she learns the true nature of her identity, she discovers a sinister plot leading her to assemble a team she had suspected was purely fictional. Written by Jeff Lemire and drawn, colored and lettered by Tyler Crook for Dark Horse Comics.
Vishal Gullapalli: Look, I’ve never been a huge Teen Titans guy. OK, that’s kind of a lie — I watched the animated show when I was a kid and loved Robin and Cyborg and Starfire and that whole crew, but when I actually got into comics, I wasn’t really ever able to find a Teen Titans book that I enjoyed. So I was, I think, reasonably skeptical when Jeff Lemire announced The Unbelievable Un-Teens, since he’d already written Teen Titans: Earth One and I’d found it lacking. But I signed up to write about this comic because, honestly, it seemed like a fun time. How about you, Mark? What were your preconceptions?
Mark Turetsky: Oh, me? Well, I went in expecting more of an X-Men pastiche than Teen Titans. Or at least X-Men and Doom Patrol melded together in the *ahem* uncanny ways in which they parallel each other. But mostly, I was excited to see a new Tyler Crook book. That guy can paint!
The Artist Behind The Art
Vishal: So, pretty immediately, this book shows an interaction that I’m sure its creators are intimately familiar with, the fan/creator convention table chat. It’s fun and charming, at least for me personally, and honestly it was interesting to see Crook draw something more subdued than his standard, more out-there fare. I thought this scene was a really strong introduction to the book – I’ve only been to one con and a couple of LCS signings, but I similarly found this scene really familiar and endearing – Jane seems like a GREAT creator to talk to at a table.
Mark: Yes! She’s really friendly with her fans. And with this being the ’90s, she’s likely at whatever stands in for Image in the Black Hammer universe. Jane Ito is writing and drawing a somewhat successful comic. It seems like it’s got some indie traction, but she doesn’t have a line waiting to meet her. She’s at the level of success where she’s got some commission work, she’s got an agent, but she’s not so successful that she doesn’t take on every commission she can at this con. Thirty-five is a lot!
Vishal: Yeah, based on what we see of her studio and general living habits, she’s definitely no Jim Lee or Todd McFarlane. I didn’t make the Image connection, actually — I thought it was maybe a Vertigo analogue, but since she owns the characters you’re probably right. Honestly, I was a little worried that because of the writer/artist connection Jane would feel like a Jeff Lemire self-insert, but that very much was not the case. She mentions very early on only being halfway through a new issue due next Friday, and I don’t think Lemire has ever been less than six months ahead of any of his deadlines, it’s ridiculous. My fears were definitely unfounded — this felt like a somewhat more positive view of comics creation than I see elsewhere, but nothing that felt egotistical in any way. I’m honestly impressed how much the first five pages of this series were able to get me invested in Jane.
Mark: Yeah, we get a nice, succinct idea of what her life is like. She lives off ramen, she spends all her time working, the closest thing to family she has is the old man at the bodega. And then our old friend Jack Sabbath from Black Hammer: Age of Doom shows up! Now, this comic was teased way back in 2019’s Free Comic Book Day offering. In that, Sabbath shows up in Madame Dragonfly’s Cabin of Horrors and starts asking her about his history, because he’s found a comic book that he’s in, and he’d assumed he’d been dead for centuries. He even said he was a member of the Liberty Squadron back in Age of Doom. So it’s unclear if there’s some meta thing going on with him, if it’s a straight-up retcon or a metacommentary on retcons.
Vishal: Much like our previous discussions, it seems worthwhile to point out that my memory of previous Black Hammer content is a lot hazier than yours — I didn’t realize Jack Sabbath was a pre-existing character, and this makes the story a lot more fascinating than it was prior. I would think that this is an intentional obfuscation of his origins, since I feel like Lemire’s had a lot of this planned out for longer than we’d think, and I’m very interested to see what goes on there.
It’s also worth pointing out that Jane is, by her own admission, only 28 years old. Which, to me, the youth of CXF, is unimaginably ancient (I joke, I’m 24), but in the greater scheme of comics creators, definitely on the younger side. It feels like most creators we’ve heard of got recognition in their 30s, at least to me. But for the Un-Teens, that’s pretty far off the age range they advertise themselves as.
The … Believable Un-Teens?
Mark: Jack states that the Un-Teens stuff happened 12 years prior, in the ’80s. The revelation that she was Strobe, the Pyro/Storm analogue, and doesn’t remember what happened, it just reminds me so much of Age of Doom, where the heroes of Spiral City find themselves back in Spiral City, away from the farm, with no memory of being superheroes at all. It’s interesting that this is such a similar setup from the same writer in the same creator-owned universe, and yet the execution of it is so different so far. There’s no inkling of “somehow, my life has seemed off” or anything like that. Jane genuinely has no idea that the Un-Teens is her own life story.
Vishal: It’s fascinating, because Black Hammer is a franchise that exists because it likes to take tropes and twist them just a bit so it feels fresh. The original series did this with the kind of Lost or Twin Peaks vibe, and this one’s taking the very tried-and-true “I used to be a superhero/secret agent but don’t remember” angle and twisting it just a bit. I am very interested in how this goes, because Jane’s complete lack of familiarity with actually being one of the Un-Teens genuinely makes this story feel different from what I expected. The angle I especially love is the White Wraith Saga — Jane’s own ideas of how the story will end are how the story ended. I think it’d be even more interesting if Jane had ideas beyond the end — if her own stories were coming true in the present or future, rather than having already happened, but I’m onboard for whatever wild ride we get.
Mark: And the White Wraith Saga seems like such an obvious parallel to the Phoenix Saga, which seems like it’d be a good stopping point if you were going to put an end to the X-Men saga (famously, it continued).
It’s funny: I’d been reading up on the promotion surrounding this book, and the premise was, “a comic book writer/artist gets visited by her own creation,” and it sounded like such a meta concept. And then I read AIPT’s interview with Lemire and Crook, where Lemire denies that it’s a meta story, which really threw me for a loop, because … I mean, that’s just a purely metafictional premise! Well, turns out he knew what he was talking about, I guess!
I’m also really interested in Jack Sabbath, and what he represents in this story, and what he did in the past (or is it Jack’s future?). He served as Lucy Weber’s guide through the Underworld/Dreamland, and he’s serving as a kind of guide here, too. I should also point out that I know next to nothing about Deadman, the DC character that he’s a spin on. Are you familiar with Deadman at all?
Vishal: I am familiar with Deadman, although not much more than what a Wikipedia entry could tell you. Boston Brand, the circus performer, died and was recruited by Rama Kushna (not a real Hindu God) to be the Deadman. He can possess living bodies and is otherwise intangible and imperceptible. He’s always felt like a Jeff Lemire character, though — his position between life and death and his inability to truly be himself feel on brand for the kind of angst Lemire loves to bring into his books. I do know Lemire wrote Justice League Dark for a spell, but I can’t recall if he had any significant Deadman content in it.
But specific to Jack Sabbath, the “guide” concept is definitely something Jack pulls from Deadman — Boston Brand is sometimes the guide for spirits to go to the afterlife (Other times he’s doing superhero stuff instead) while Jack is Lucy’s guide into her future and Jane’s guide into her past. I’m sure Lemire’s doing something here, but there’s not enough for me to grasp onto yet, especially since Jack seems to not know everything about where he’s trying to take Jane.
Mark: It seems like the bigger question here is not really why the Un-Teens have forgotten who they are, it’s why the rest of the world has. If they were an active superhero team, even in a world like Black Hammer, which seems to be teeming with them, someone out there should remember them. And it doesn’t seem like reality has been rewritten altogether in an Age of Doom/Apocalypse way, because Charles Xavier, Niles Caulder, Miles Moniker’s mansion is still there.
But enough about story and mystery, which I’m very intrigued by. Can we gush about the art?
Tyler Crook
Vishal: Yes, absolutely! I’d first seen Tyler Crook’s art on Harrow County with Cullen Bunn, and I thought he was great there, but I feel like his work in the Black Hammer-verse is so much more interesting because you can see him stretching a little more. Colonel Weird was gorgeous, and one issue in The Unbelievable Un-Teens is just as fantastic. I love the way he draws Jane’s comics — they feel like a creator-owned superhero comic team, just off-kilter enough to not be a Big Two property. The double-page spread within a double-page spread was GORGEOUS, and the great adversary the Un-Teens are fighting (presumably the White Wraith?) comes off as truly menacing.
Mark: I was absolutely going to bring up that spread as well! It’s jaw-dropping how good he makes the comic-within-a-comic look. The fact that we’ve got painted “real” pages, and then what look to be traditional pencil-and-ink pages superimposed on them, it just looks fantastic. Not to mention just how much the colors of the Un-Teens comic pop in comparison to the more muted tones of Jane’s real life. His faces are well acted, too. I don’t know how he does it, but Jack Sabbath, whose face is literally dried and rotten flesh stretched over a skull, comes off as … well, like a lovable doofus! I haven’t read any Harrow County, but it’s moving up my to-read pile, for sure.
Vishal: Crook’s one of those artists who frequently draws the standard smiley face on characters who he doesn’t want to put too many details into, but unlike a LOT of artists who do this, it never takes me out of the book. He’s really good at making his characters emote with their faces and body language in a way that I feel like most artists should be jealous of. And yeah, the coloring throughout the issue is incredible — every single panel is colored to perfection, creating exactly the vibe that keeps the issue strong. Too light, and the serious bits fail to land. Too serious, and this just feels too grimdark. But Crook threads that needle so well.
Mark: Crook showcases the contrasting art styles best on the four-panel page where Jack reveals he sent Snapdragon to hell. The real anguish that he’s feeling telling Jane the story, coupled with the “comic book style” images of Snapdragon with reaction-lightning-bolts coming off her head. It’s just so expertly, cleverly conceived and rendered.
So, Vishal. Now that you’ve read the first issue, are you on board to continue on with the rest of the mini?
Vishal: I’m definitely down so far — I thought the last page did not land nearly as well as it should have, but I’m genuinely enjoying the intrigue and the book is drop-dead gorgeous. You’ve got me again, Jeff Lemire.
Dispatches from the Para-Zone
- That demon/monster thing (The White Wraith?) shows up in the background art for the Un-Teens in the World of Black Hammer Encyclopedia.
- When Jack first shows up, Jane brandishes her pen, which, if he’s a fictional creation of hers, wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
- Along with Black Hammer Reborn and Black Hammer: Visions, we’re up to three Black Hammer series at once. A feat that was only ever achieved once before, and that was because of COVID-19 delays.
- I’m wondering if we’ll get any insights into how Jane wrote each character’s personalities, including Strobe’s, considering she was unwittingly writing herself.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
