Radiant Black #1

Radiant Black #1Image Comics 2021

Written by Kyle Higgins

Illustrated by Marcelo Costa

Lettered by Becca Carey

Nathan Burnett has just turned thirty, and things aren’t great: He’s working (and failing) at two jobs, his credit card debt is piling up, and his only move…is moving back home with his parents. But when Nathan discovers and unlocks the ethereal, cosmic RADIANT, he's given the power to radically change his fortunes! There’s just one problem: The powers don’t belong to him. And the COSMIC BEINGS who created them want them back...by any means necessary.

Alright so this wasn’t anything like I was expecting it to be, and you all know that I actually love that! I mean seeing the blurb for it, see above, doesn’t do it anywhere near justice enough. I mean in this modern world the economy really is shite and the reality of this hasn’t been good a long while now and twenty somethings moving back in with their folks isn’t uncommon anymore. Still seeing Nathan and his whole situation come about and lead him to this course of action well it seems like he’s close to being a loser. I don’t mind that at all and while his situation is typical it’s still interesting to see Kyle create and take someone so incredibly ordinary and turn him to so much more.

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. Seriously Kyle is great when it comes to crafting a story and this is no exception as from start to finish this issue has the perfect sensibility to it in how it comes across from the character development to the revealing the story at hand. I love the character development that we see here because it really does give us a chance to get into the characters heads and it shouldn’t be surprising but somehow the depth of it is. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we’re treated to an incredibly interesting story.

With how we see the structured as well as how the layers within the story begin to emerge keeps the reader riveted to the page. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow really is utterly fabulous.

I really am rather impressed with the quality of work on the interiors here. The linework is really nicely and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the attention to detail we see is simply marvellous. The facial expressions are about as good as you can get and how they manage to really expand the characterisation. I like how we see the composition within the panels with the backgrounds that we see bringing us this nice depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is gorgeous! How we see the colours that are chosen and how the various hues and tones within those colours are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a stupendous eye for how colour can, should and does work.

There is a different kind of realism that comes with this book and while I am sure no one has seen a costumed hero on this earth so everything that we’re seeing is brand new to them and that has an excitement all of it’s own. There is something refreshing about this and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.