Reviewer: John Babos
Story Title: Heartbreaker! (The Tenth Circle: part six)
Written by: John Byrne and Chris Claremont
Pencils by: John Byrne
Inks by: Jerry Ordway
Colors by: David Baron
Letters by: Tom Orzechowski
Asst. Editor: Valerie D’Orazio
Editor: Mike Carlin
Publisher: DC
Two of comics’ biggest names bring to an end a collaboration years in the making. Fans have clamored for a John Byrne and Chris Claremont collaboration since John moved onto other projects after a groundbreaking run with Chris on Marvel’s X-Men. While one would have expected their much-demanded reunion to be a story with an X-Men flavor, their Tenth Circle arc in the pages of DC’s JLA was certainly not.
That’s both a good and a bad thing.
“Good†because I never like to be “ahead†of the story. I still want to be surprised and clamoring for next month’s offering.
“Bad†because any Byrne/Claremont reunion will always draw comparisons to their X-Men work even when similarities don’t exist. I will give those readers this though, the closest the Tenth Circle arc comes to being an X-Men story is in the following ways:
1) John Byrne worked on it;
2) Chris Claremont worked on it; and
3) The Doom Patrol and the X-Men share historical and philosophical roots.
“Hearthbreaker†wraps up most of the threads from this multifaceted Tenth Circle arc. While the Doom Patrol has in some ways overshadowed the main JLA roster in the JLA title, issue #99 has both teams working side-by-side to defeat the vampire lord Crucifer while elbowing each other for more face-time in the book.
Horror meets sci-fi as we learn more of the vampire Crucifer’s origins and his connection to a neighboring dimension – a connection that is key to his downfall and delivers some very cool fanboy moments with the Doom Patrol’s size-manipulating Rita Farr teaming with the JLA’s similar-powered Ray Palmer (a.k.a. the Atom).
As I’m a fan of both the Underworld and Van Helsing movies, I don’t mind vampires as antagonists per se. In a comics world where you have your pick of many different mythologies or genres to pull characters from, I’m not particularly convinced that a bad-haired vampire is a JLA-level threat. However, character is second to story, and its really the circumstances that are set in motion by Crucifer that make this globe-threatening Tenth Circle arc a JLA-level threat. Its the stories that make characters interesting and bring them to life and break stereotypes. There is something eerie about a pack of children together up to no good under the thrall of some sinister force. Its not a new plot device, but it is still an emotion-evoking one.
For the most part, I thought issue #99 was one of the better issues of the Tenth Circle arc. However, it is blessed and cursed by the same elements of its preceding issues, but to varying degrees.
Finally, John Byrne’s pencils predominantly look like his own. While I have always liked Jerry Ordway, particularly his Infinity Inc. run and Power of Shazam! hard cover, if I want to see his pencils, I’ll buy a book with him as penciller. Many of the early issues of this arc were marred by overpowering inks by Ordway, in some cases actually redrawing Byrne’s work.
The colorist, David Baron, continues his mediocre work. While editors ensure that the coloring meets the story requirements, I’m still not a fan of Baron’s “mono-colour†(for lack of a better descriptor) stylized scenes – the Doom Patrol’s headquarters scenes are done with a green backdrop, while their aircraft scenes are red, the Crucifer Castle scenes against a sandy brown backdrop, the pocket dimension’s blue backgrounds, and the flashbacks are totally in yellow. Also, there is a HUGE coloring gaffe in one of the major twists in the latter part of the issue. Look at the coloring in contrast to the word balloons – you can’t miss it.
This book has your typical Chris Claremont scripting effort. Its a meaty read that makes you feel that the money you shelled out on the book is worth the hefty “read†one gets. While some of his dialogue, particularly for the younger characters, sounds “offâ€, the overall scripting effort does lend itself to an all-ages accessible “readâ€.
I’m still a fan of John Byrne’s pencils. They convey dynamic action scenes and really help the story flow. The visuals for Negative Man are excellent and the design for Robot Man is a nice amalgam of the ‘60s and late ‘70s incarnations of the character. I also found that Byrne’s Batman, in many parts of this issue, had a very Jim Aparo flavor to him, which I pretty much dug.
Although I enjoyed the arc for the most part, the design of the villain Crucifer didn’t tickle my fancy, but that was offset by my excitement at getting to see a Doom Patrol again. Can’t have everything.
While I would prefer some type of in-continuity explanation for this “new†(yet olde) Doom Patrol, I will give the new series a shot. Although, I pretty much have to with the cliffhanger ending to this issue (a plot device I prefer if the story is continued in the next issue of JLA not in a new series).
Love them or hate them, Claremont and Byrne are two of the industry’s strongest creative forces. Does everything they touch turn to gold? No, but their JLA arc certainly has a touch of silver.
