Lazarus is further buoyed by Williamson’s use of fighter cameos from a variety of eras and lineages, which had me scouring the crowd scenes. It’s a weird mix, maybe a more appropriate mix for Damian than a high school setting, but weird nonetheless - though that weirdness in no small part helped keep my interest. But we’re a ways from Gotham Heights, as Damian negotiates both a supernatural island and a fighting tournament where hearts are ripped out of bodies with alacrity. Williamson’s Robin Damian Wayne book feels like it wants to be that kind of teen title, especially toward the end as Damian gathers his own team of teen-something heroes. It was the equivalent of a modern CW show, never too dark and with plenty of levity, and that never forgot its protagonist was a teen and populated the world around him primarily with teens, too. To me the benchmark of a Robin comic still remains Chuck Dixon’s Tim Drake series, Robin fighting crime while negotiating high school and staying on the right side of his “suburban Jim Gordon,” Steven “Shotgun” Smith. 1: The Lazarus Tournament is silly, irreverent, and doesn’t quite seem to know what comic it wants to be, and I rather enjoyed it. It is, I think, a controversial and courageous sentiment from Easton for the most part, Shilo has been portrayed as a showboat Miracle unconcerned with such things, and not coincidentally, near as I can tell, has been written entirely by non-black writers except for an issue of Firestorm by Dwayne McDuffie 1. No sooner does Miracle Shilo Norman pull off a death-defying fall from space, classic Mister Miracle content, than Easton goes there, just seven pages in - Shilo refuses his agent’s suggestion that he unmask because he’s concerned how he’ll be treated if his audience knows he’s black.
Taking just the first chapter of Source of Freedom, Easton’s title seems unstoppable. It is the book’s attempt at Fourth World content, the times it devolves into run-of-the-mill superhero smash-up comics, that hurts it, if not sealing Source’s fate outright. Pity, that - where Easton’s Source delves into race and the pains of celebrity, I found the book quite interesting, even daring. Unfortunately, some of that is lesser in Source, and I wonder if the fact that there’s no additional Mister Miracle content on DC’s horizon suggests Source’s failings mark the end. I enjoyed Brandon Easton’s Mister Miracle: The Source of Freedom his Future State backup story was among those that really stood out to me in story and style.