Book Review - Midnighter, Vol. 1: Out

Midnighter, Vol. 1: OutMidnighter, Vol. 1: Out by Steve Orlando
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, I may just have binge-read this entire series, 'cause I kinda like Midnighter. I read Midnighter and Apollo and loved it; this series is the predecessor for that one.

I don't know much about Midnighter, but both series have made sure we're well aware of his violent childhood. He's a strange character, given that he can't lose. You'd think that would make him boring, but it doesn't. He constantly has to process and understand the situation before attacking. There's plenty of detective work involved, though the writers don't delve too much into that. Most of it is implied.

He has some dark, often uncomfortable humour that is best enjoyed alone. Midnighter's also awful violent - most of the creeps deserve what they get, but the gore is... unlike anything I've read in most mainstream comics.

I loved that the writers brought in Dick Grayson for a couple of issues. I absolutely love Grayson, and he is not misplaced in Midnighter's crazy world. I love the banter between the two of them. Grayson is drawn differently from what I'm used to - with a longer face and shorter hair. It's not the regular square-jawed, wavy-haired look. I'm in two minds about whether it worked or not. Regular Grayson looks like a Korean pop star; this one looks like a Latino dancer. Both are good, I think.

There's a twist at the end that I didn't see coming. It was a good way to keep the comic interesting. But, (mild spoilers ahead) I feel like the writers didn't give Midnighter enough of a chance to process what happened. He's an overconfident fighting machine who always wins, for him to face a betrayal of the emotional kind should have shocked his system. He's not a machine - irrespective of his technologically enhanced body. He's highly empathetic and feels everything; the readers deserved to see this character reel from this incident and work his way back from it. It could have still ended in a fight, but with a short interlude, perhaps.

I still find the concepts of the series confusing - there's magic, technology, weird monsters. what not. It's not easy to get my head around it all. But this volume of the series remained exceptionally fun, despite it all.

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