Time To Do That Big Hero Stuff — Reviewing ‘Mr. Terrific: Year One’ #5

Go ahead say the name. It’s right there on the tongue’s tip ready to be shouted out to the world.

That name is Mr. Terrific, and Michael Holt has finally embraced and taken the name. It’s all here in the penultimate issue of Mr. Terrific: Year One, as Al Letson, Valentine De Landro, Marissa Louise, Edwin Galmon, and Lucas Gattoni prepare to bring the their story home.

Dissecting a character and really peeling back the layers is such a beautiful thing. Shorter origins give us the gist and really help make the character tangible and who they are foundationally. Series like these allow for more depth and digging. Taking what was there and pulling more from the cracks to give the foundation an even stronger structure.

Letson has taken us on a grand journey with Michael Holt over these five issues. Going from the shut-in living in his depression version of the character to the man who declares himself as a defender for those who can’t fight. There is no bit of it that feels rushed or shaky. Everything feels strong and beyond logical, the journey from point A to point B really delivering.

Mr. Terrific is one of those characters who has hovered around the periphery in many things. He’s bigger and more known in comics but mostly only showing in mass media in middle to smaller respects, until recently. Now though stuff like this really showcases the need for characters like this to be at the forefront. Representation is a powerful and needed thing, and it allows for characters of different stripes to stand tall amongst those who always get the boost.

This is a character and a voice behind him that could hold down an ongoing series easily. (Damn, I wish we could get that, because that would be fantastic.)

It’s been a very rough journey for our intrepid hero. How that’s been depicted by De Landro really matches the overall vibe- a very sharp and angular style of artwork that embraces the grit into the textures. But he never loses any of the detail or expressiveness along the way. Mr. Terrific, thanks in part to the first one, feels like a very street-level type of hero.

Yet here he is involved in a lot of big, giant, beyond-the-streets stuff. Despite that the more street friendly type of art style keeps on working. Panel work really helps keep the eyes focused and gives such deep life to everything.

All these vibes are matched by Louise and the color palette. Delivering tones that are very even across the board in delivering an aesthetic that feels overly familiar. That more neutral type of background and setting specific type of color span. These still have lightness and darkness spread through them with the shadows and more vibrant delicate colors. While other moments are given space to be as vibrant as possible to showcase the superhero science fiction elements that are baked into the story.

I still really love the work Galmon is doing to start off the issues- slickness and really flowing work that gives a very different vibe. He creates the perfect delineation between past and present, dipping into much more vibrant splashy colors at times, matching what the scene calls for, in such stark and forthright ways. It gives us that quick feeling of how much Holt’s life has changed in the time from the main story to the modern day.

I love to see Gattoni’s work in books. Lettering is supposed to be a skill that is not as visible in many senses in some people’s mindset. To me, great lettering lets itself be known while it entangles itself right into the rest of the work. Gattoni really makes that work by delivering some colors and shapes and modifiers that really liven up and highlight dialogue, captions, and more, while crafting unique elements to give each character a voice, even when things might surface visually feel or appear the same. He does it all while infusing each utterance or moment with emotion to assist creation of internal reciting of these voices.

Mr. Terrific: Year One #5 is now available from DC Comics.