The Human Target #1
DC Comic 2021
Written by Tom King
Illustrated by Greg Smallwood
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
Christopher Chance has made a living out of being a human target-a man hired to disguise himself as his client to invite would-be assassins to attempt his murder. He’s had a remarkable career until his latest case protecting Lex Luthor when things go sideways. An assassination attempt Chance didn’t see coming leaves him vulnerable and left trying to solve his own murder...as he has 12 days to discover just who in the DCU hated Luthor enough to want him dead. Human Target is a hard-boiled, gritty story in the vein of classic detective noirs.
I love Christopher Chance and every few years he gets a great spotlight vehicle, last time he got a television series from it which I rather enjoyed. So for him to get the Tom King treatment sends me to the moon and back. Even better is that this is set during the time when the Justice League International was the reigning Justice League team. Yes spoiler alert they are mentioned but then both covers show them so not really a spoiler. What is interesting here is who he’s posing as and what happens to him while on this job and it sets the stage for what we’re going to see throughout the run.
I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter which does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing the story, the characters and what we can expect moving forward.
I’m extremely impressed with the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and evolve. As the severity of the story takes hold and the layers within the story open up new avenues to explore we see so much great depth, dimension and complexity added to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.
I am super impressed with the interiors here. There is this absolutely gorgeous style to the work that we see that blends this really sharp attention to detail with this trippy colour scheme at times to create something completely unique and different but fits with a new age throwback Noir style story. We see some great use of backgrounds that enhance and expand the moments beautifully and they work within the composition of the panels to bring out this great 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 masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a stellar eye for how colour works and how to maximise their effects. With the inspired choices and placement of some colours really makes for some of the strongest standout moments.
The idea here is fantastic and the man Chance turns to for his diagnoses is as iconic as it gets which only cements his place within the DC Universe. Involving one of DC’s most notorious and least liked characters makes his job all the harder in determining who wants to see him dead, let’s face it there’s no shortage of folks who wished that. Still with this level of intelligent and smart writing and impeccable characterisation alongside these absolutely and completely amazing interiors DC’s next big story is officially underway!
About the Creator
Steven Leitman
Just me talking about the comics I enjoy reading, ones that you might not know exist and spotlighting the indie creators that excite me.
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