By Zack Quaintance — Before I start my proper review of The Unbelievable Unteens #1 — the latest book in the growing Black Hammer Universe, which is the brainchild of writer/artist Jeff Lemire — I should in the interest of transparency note one thing: I am nothing if not a sucker for comics that involve characters who make comics. Making comics is exactly how this book starts. Our hero here — Jane Ito — is a comic book creator, and when we meet her, she’s taking commissions after a long day at a con. This is a first page that hooks me, and it hooks me hard.

But also in the interest of transparency, this book was something I was predisposed to like before I ever opened and found that first page. I’ve enjoyed almost all of Black Hammer to date, which must at this point number at least a dozen books. It feels a lot like a new sort of Hellboy Universe, just masterminded by Lemire instead of Mike Mignola, and drawing from superhero homages rather than world folklore and mythos. This book on the surface also looked to be Black Hammer’s take on X-Men, although now that I’ve read it that’s not quite the case, not really.

There are some elements of X-Men here, specifically that the powers that the titular Unteens have sometimes fall closer to body horror than true superheroics. But mostly, this is just an all purpose teen superhero book, and if you squint hard, sure, you can see X-Men, but at the same time you could also seen Teen Titans, or New Avengers, or Young Justice, or even Doom Patrol. The teen superhero team here is an homage to many properties, borrowing from well-known comics mythos to forge it into something wholly new — which is what Black Hammer comics do at their best.

That newness comes at the intersection of the making comics elements we discussed at this review’s start. This book has a concept that feels familiar, like it’s so obvious that it has to have been done before…right? But that just speaks to the clean and interesting nature of the concept. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like the idea at the center of this comic. If I have, I’ve definitely forgotten it, which means it maybe wasn’t as well executed as it could have been.

The concept is that a comic book creator is actually telling a story that she lived and maybe forgot. She was one of the super-powered teens. The adventures in her comics that readers care so much about are things that actually happened to her. The inciting incident is an old teammate showing up to remind her. It’s great and very clever stuff.

And of course none of it works without the singular talents of Tyler Crook, who illustrates and letters the book. That concept is a good one, but it’s definitely one that would benefit from having more of a comics auteur feel than the usual assembly-line setup that gives rise to monthly direct market comics. Crook’s work is fantastic and nuanced, and while I can’t quite articulate why, he’s just the sort of creator you want doing this idea. It works wonderfully, and while it’s just one issue, this book seems poised to be a high point with the Black Hammer family of comics, which is saying a lot.

Overall: Wow. I’ve enjoyed the Black Hammer Universe of comics overall, but The Unbelievable Unteens feels special. It’s got an excellent metafictional concept that caters right to people who spend much of their time doing comics things, executed to near perfection by Tyler Crook. 9.5/10

REVIEW: The Unbelievable Unteens #1

The Unbelievable Unteens #1
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Tyler Crook
Letterer: Tyler Crook
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Jeff Lemire! Tyler Crook! From the world of the Eisner Award-winning Black Hammer series comes this meta team superhero saga taking place between two different worlds. After signing at a comic book convention, Unbelievable Unteens artist Jane Ito finds herself visited by one of the characters from her own creation—but was it her own creation? Were the Unteens an actual school of teenaged misfit superheroes who battled supervillains under the lead of the mysterious Dr. Miles Moniker? And if so, who wiped their memories and why? As Jane's world is turned upside down and she learns the true nature of her identity, she discovers a sinister plot leading her to assemble a team she had suspected was purely fictional. An exciting reimagination of the Eisner Award-winning Black Hammer series!
Price: $3.99
More Info: The Unbelievable Unteens #1

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.