The Other History of the DC Universe #1
Written by John Ridley. Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Andrea Cucchi. Cover by Jamal Campbell.



I don't pick up my books weekly, but monthly, so I just got this recently. An alternate history of the DC Universe, done in a style reminiscent of the Wolfman/Perez History of the DCU in terms of text with art rather than pure comic form narrative. In this version of the DCU, Superman, Batman and that generation of heroes make their debut in the early 1970s. The narrative is told from the perspective of Jefferson Pierce a.k.a. Black Lightning and tells his story with the history of the other heroes only there as context and only really given screen time when it intersects with Jefferson's story.

The art is excellent, but a bit chameleon-like as the style often morphs a bit to evoke the artists who drew the originals the narrative is referencing (Von Eeden, Aparo, Neal Adams, etc.) while retaining its own distinctive look. Ridley's narrative is excellent, but it does read more like an illustrated novel than a comic. Well worth reading though and it really digs deep into Jefferson Pierce as a character (I'll admit I've not read any solo Black Lightning books or much of the Outsiders run so I don't know how faithful it is to what has come before and how much is Ridley's own contribution to it all).

I was really looking forward to this when it was originally announced for Black Label, but it was delayed seemingly interminably (not as much as the DeConnick/Jimenez Amaazon project though), so some of the enthusiasm had faded, but I did really enjoy this, though I was a bit disappointed with the decision to go the illustrated novel approach rather than a true comic narrative, so I had to rate it, I will give it a 4 out 5 as a standalone work, but I think I will need to see the whole series before being able to really evaluate it to my satisfaction to see if some of the thematic foundations are carried through or change from installment to installment.

-M