The Week of January 23 in Review Part 4 of 9– The Answer #1

I almost passed on Dark Horse’s new mini-series The Answer by Mike Norton and Dennis Hopeless but Hopeless has done some interesting work with Marvel and Norton has done decent art on some Image books and I said what the hell. I mean if I’m picking up all sorts of new books from the big two just because of familiar characters I should take more chances on new stuff, especially from creators I’m aware of and have enjoyed their work.

So I got The Answer #1 and I’m hooked and I’ll be back for the rest of the series. The one main question I have is why is The Answer a mask with an exclamation point? Of course somehow he will have to be paired off with or fight against The Question or not. Okay I got that goofy stuff out of my system.

All kidding aside the book does a great job and pulling you into the story immediately and then never letting go. By the end of the book I’d be mystified if you did not want to read the next issue which is what you want a first issue to do.

We open with a woman on the edge of a building. To her side on the next building is The Answer cajoling her to jump. Men come out and start shooting at her and she jumps against her better judgment.

We flashback and find out she is a librarian. She gets a birthday present from her Mom that is a Rubik’s cube on steroids. She solves it and is invited onto a website and proceeds to solve hard and harder puzzles. When she wins The Answer shows up and tells her she is in danger. An action sequence ensures and the hero gets her to get onto a bus to escape. She watches as The Answer is shot in the head. The end is The Answer walks up to her as she is now sleeping on the bus some ways down the road.

Of course there are other things going on, but that is the gist of the set up. One thing I loved was they used the horrid cliché of killing the hero in the first issue and made sure we did not have to wait until next issue to know it was not true. Of course maybe it was because who knows who The Answer is or what he is or perhaps how many of them. When a first issue has me wondering and entertains so well it is a winner in my book.

This was an excellent start to a new mini-series.

Part 5 tomorrow!