Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn #1 Review

   

  

Written by: Alex Segura, Alex Paknadel, Greg Pak
Art by: Clayton Cowles, Christopher Mitten, Minkyu Jung
Colors by: Marcelo Maiolo, Romulo Fajardo, Jr., Sunny Gho
Letters by: Pat Brosseau, Troy Peteri, Wes Abbott
Cover art by: Vasco Georgiev
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: January 31, 2023

Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn #1 recounts three odd tales of various DC heroes encountering struggles spawned from the Lazarus Storm.
Is It Good?

Don't let the name fool you. Very few of the shorts in this anthology relate to the main Lazarus Planet event other than their setups, and none focus on a legend being reborn. On the whole, the shorts are middle-of-the-road in terms of quality, but if you pick this up thinking it plays a pivotal role in Lazarus Planet, it doesn't.

Masks and Monsters

Commissioner Montoya, aka the Question, hunts down a serial killer and finds out the Lazarus Storm can bring out the worst in even terrible men.

This is a fine short. The Question follows basic leads to track down a serial killer turned much worse by Lazarus Rain. A short story that puts Question back on the hunt is always a treat, but the short, basic methods Question uses to find the killer makes her lieutenants (already on the case) look like incompetent amateurs.

Trilogy

Raven and Beast Boy seek out three boys turned into half-demons after exposure to the Lazarus Rain. Raven intends to find the boys and get them help before Trigon recruits them into his service. However, Raven may already be too late.

Paknadel's short leans heavily into the supernatural and the horror with a Raven-focused story. Sending Raven on a mission of mercy is a nice change of pace, and Trigon's appearance is unexpectedly bloody. That said, Mitten's art is an acquired taste, so some readers may not be thrilled with the final result.

City Boy

A young man from out of town comes to Gotham looking for lost trinkets to make some cash. When his unique power to map out and traverse the city's bowels leads him to a special tiara, Nightwing reminds the young man that it's sometimes better to do what's right rather than make a buck.

Weird. Greg Pak's story is just plain weird. The young man is never named, but apparently, his hero handle indeed will be City Boy, with future adventures coming soon from DC Comics. When City Boy is struck by Lazarus Lightning, a strange rat made of trash comes to life to either guide or hinder his quest to find loot, and Nightwing lends a hand when City Boy almost drowns in the sewers. Oh, and old lady Amethyst makes an appearance. Again, weird, but on the plus side, this short has the best art in the entire issue.

Rain of Terror

Firestorm gets caught in the Lazarus storm, and the rain forces Ronnie Raymond and Prof. Stein to separate, with catastrophic results. Days later, Ronnie returns to the scene of the separation with a science team and witnesses rifts opening that allows shadow demons to come through to our world. Ronnie is left with no choice but to bond with a member of the science team, Dr. Ramirez, to become Firestorm once more.

Of all the shorts in this issue, this one feels like it has meaning and could lead somewhere. If you view the Lazarus Planet event as DC's opportunity to shake up a few status quos, this is the only short in this issue that achieves the goal. The art's great, the change-up makes sense (sorta), and the outcome leads to a mystery worth following.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces:

Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn #1 recounts three weird tales of heroes grappling with the aftereffects of the Lazarus Storm. The shorts range from just okay to just plain weird, and none has a material impact on the Lazarus Planet event.

6/10