FIRST ISSUE: GREEN HORNET

FIRST ISSUES: An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode” — that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

GREEN HORNET

Green Hornet No. 1 is a markedly successful first issue, which is worth noting because Dynamite, which seems bent on reviving every antique hero of the four-color pulp past, has missed the boat more often than not, IMHO. But Kevin Smith’s revival here is lively and engaging. The issue is divided into two parts — the past and the present. The opening sequence is in the past: Green Hornet and his Asiatic cohort Kato, take on the last two crime families in Century City, an Italian mob and a Japanese mafia, and wipe the floor with them. Then Britt Reid, the Green Hornet without his fedora, retires, and Kato wanders off to raise a family. In the second part, we meet Reid’s son Britt, a playboy slacker, as his girlfriend of four years is moving out because he hasn’t proposed to her yet. She leaves, and he goes to have lunch with his father, the erstwhile Green Hornet, who is now publisher of a newspaper, the Sentinel. Young Britt is a likeable wise-ass (literally: he moons the phalanx of paparazzi who hang around his apartment, hoping to get photos — and they’re successful this day in catching Britt in his shorts, pleading with his girlfriend not to leave, and they also photograph the mooning and sell the photo to Reid Sr.), and because he’s likeable, we wonder what will happen next. So the book accomplishes its primary mission as an inaugural issue. And the past and present constitute two complete episodes, with enough beginning, middle and end apiece to persuade us that Smith knows what he’s doing. And in seeing the characters in completed actions, we know them better than we would otherwise.

Jonathan Lau’s pencils etched by Ivan Nunes’ gleaming colors are crisp and dynamic with a defining sheen. No one is credited as inker, so I assume the coloring, in effect, “inks” the pencils. Breakdowns are by Phil Hester, who is thoroughly accomplished at this sort of thing, but the fast-moving action of the opening battle sequence is not always a model of clarity, a circumstance arising, no doubt, because there’s so much exploding and shattering glass around. And pictures of the Hornet aloft, springing up and jumping down and swinging in on a length of hoist chain, while graceful enough on their own, do not blend into anything like continuous action. They’re poses rather than actions. But that’s a minor matter. Everywhere else, Hester sets up the scenes and executes the actions with panache.

Nunes’ glistening colors and Smith’s dialoguing with snappy patter are the highlights of the issue. The relationship between Green Hornet and Kato comes into sharp focus as they banter back and forth; ditto the relationship between Reid and his wife, who, after threatening to cut him off that night for coming in late (“Any chance you had of getting lucky tonight just went south,” she quips) makes him swear that he won’t tell his son about his crime-fighting exploits because Britt Jr. might decide to follow in his father’s flights: “It was bad enough living through you doing it. I don’t think I’d ever make it through him trying the same stunt,” she says. The verbal exchanges between Britt the Younger and his fleeing would-be fiancee are equally flippant and revealing. Dialogue like this — and pictures like Lau-Nunes’ — will bring me back every time.