Hard Time #1
HARD TIME #1
Orginally Presented by Comixtreme.com
Review by: Blake M. Petit BlakePT@cox.net
Quick Rating: Fair
Title: 50 to Life
One mistake has ruined Ethan Harrow’s life… and something else may change the world.
Writer: Steve Gerber
Art: Brian Hurtt
Colors: Brian Haberlin
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Joan Hilty
Cover Art: Tomer Hanuka
Publisher: DC Comics/DCFocus
Review: This title launches the new DC Focus imprint, a line of comic books about a standard, non-superpowered universe where people begin getting superpowers. It’s a concept that has been tried in comic books many times before (can anyone say New Universe?), and has usually failed, but this first issue has enough going for it that Focus may have a shot.
I won’t be quite as concerned about spoilers as I usually am, since the title of this comic book is the biggest spoiler for the end of this issue you could give. Ethan is talked by a friend of his into participating in a mock “school shooting,” planning just to give a scare to the kids who torment them on a daily basis. He doesn’t know his friend intends to take things to a deadly end, though, and when bullets begin flying a strange power erupts from Ethan and the incident ends in a rain of blood.
This first issue didn’t really overwhelm me, mainly because the spectre of Columbine has been brought up time and again in pop culture lately, and it bothers me when someone uses a real-world tragedy as a launching point when it doesn’t feel 100 percent necessary to the story… there are a lot of ways that Ethan could have arrived at the endpoint of this issue. Social commentary is all well and good, but this does feel a bit exploitative at points.
The good mostly outweighs the bad, though. You do find yourself interested in Ethan and what’s going to happen to him… not to mention what did happen to put himself in such a position in the first place. From his social standing in school to the bizarre, brutal power he manifests, there is much more to this young man than meets the eye.
Hurtt has a very unusual style, something that’s kind of cartoony and sketchy, and combined with great colors by Haberlin this book has a feel of an independent comic with better production values.
For those of you interested, this book also contains previews of the next few DC Focus releases - but this issue by itself is interesting enough to grab one’s attention. The problems in this book can easily be overcome with good writing in the next few issues. If you’re looking for something different, give this one a shot.
Rating: 6/10