Marvel Comics’ DC tribute continues with a twisted riff on Arkham Asylum in Heroes Reborn #5. Written by Jason Aaron, drawn by R.M. Guera & Ed McGuinness, inked by Mark Morales, colored by Giulia Brusco & Matthew Wilson, and lettered by Cory Petit.
Heroes Reborn #5’s title is “The Pageant of The Masters of Nocturnal Artistry”. That should tell you a lot about Heroes Reborn #5.
Melding a quasi-fascist take on Batman (here in the form of the Squadron Supreme’s Nighthawk) with the wry self-awareness this event has displayed throughout its back half, writer Jason Aaron has delivered another rousingly weird installment. Much like his atomic-powered counterpart Hyperion, Nighthawk is dealing with a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum.
Erm. I mean, Ravenscar. You can probably guess where that ends up, but the journey to get there involves some darkly funny and sharply written comedy from Aaron. At this point the mask obscuring the Squadron Supreme’s recklessly violent methods has been dropped, but Heroes Reborn #5 continues to make it explicit. This time by focusing on Nighthawk and his war on crime; a war that doubles as bone-crunching therapy for him night after night.
The idea of a Batman that has fully embraced his trauma and open contempt for criminality is not a new one. Hell, Chuck Dixon made a whole career out of it! But framed against the wooly world of Heroes Reborn, Aaron finds a goofy, but bleakly funny in-road to this kind of “Dark Avenger” character. Like the previous installment surrounding Doctor Spectrum, Aaron and Nighthawk are done playing around at this point, droning on about how the dark is his real home and how he only feels alive with the blood of criminals on his knuckles. Anchored by this over-written narration, the issue provides us a clear look into the mind of Nighthawk, which has been ravaged by trauma, arrested development, and his clearly unhealthy coping mechanisms.
While Batman titles usually try and play this stuff seriously, Aaron seems to be having a total blast writing this maniac, pushing us and the “hero” deeper into Ravenscar to face Bat Rogue reskins of famous Marvel villains. The issue’s plot does get tripped up somewhat by some unexplained details of this world, which have been largely fleshed out in tie-in issues. Readers wondering just why Nighthawk can’t stop talking about Sam Wilson or why Gwen Stacy suddenly has a Nighthawk-branded persona won’t find too many explanations here. But I think the broadness of this issue’s DC riff (clearly aping the seminal Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth) and Aaron’s commitment to the bit papers over that lack of exposition well.
However, Heroes Reborn #5 is definitely the muddiest looking issue of the event so far. Aside from the more conventionally rendered and actually quite good back-up story this month (centered around T’Challa who operates as Ronin in this reality), artists R.M. Guera and Giulia Brusco get lost in the darkness here. Their tonality is great, I’ll admit. Much like the American Knights tie-in, the art team really lean into what a “Marvel Batman story” would look like, so we are provided with a lot of semi-realistic cityscapes and plenty of dramatic posing from Nighthawk and his rogues.
But the confluence of Guera’s highly sketchy style and Brusco’s almost three-shades-too-dark coloring makes this story look less like a Dark Knight and more like a plain dark night: far too inky to peer through clearly. A disappointment after the high visual weirdness of the intergalactic fourth installment.
Despite the humdrum visuals, Heroes Reborn #5 has more going for it beyond the obvious Batman riffs. The cartoonish violence alongside Jason Aaron’s increasingly cranky characterizations for the Squadron’s “A-List” have shown that this event has more on its mind than just a DC Comics pastiche with a ‘90’s “extreme” sheen. Of course, I could be wrong. It’s happened before. We still have about six issues and change to go, so that’s plenty of time for this thesis to be destroyed.
But I’ll bet my Fleer cards there’s something here by the end. (God, I hope there is.)
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
