REVIEW: JLA/HITMAN #1

by Dwight Bills

     From the moment he barfed on the Dark Knight's Batboots, I knew Tommy Monaghan and I were going to be buddies.

     I remember when I bought the first issue of Hitman, back in the days when the comic book bubble was collapsing.  It wasn't much to look at for the time - just Tommy, guns blazing, with a big black shadow with that little yellow oval looming behind him - no foil, no lenticular moving bits, and no poly-bagged trading card multi-covered madness.  I heard the grumbling of those in the tiny little Middle GA Cards and Comics store - 'Punisher rip-off', they said.  I don't know if any of the other people there at the time bought the book or not.  But, hey, it had Batman in it, and I was just discovering John Woo at the time and the cover had the same kind of feel...so I picked it up.  Those who didn't...well...poor ‘bastiches’ is all I can say.
     I've never been happier with a comic book purchase. Ever.  Not only did I love this book, but it served as my introduction to my favorite comic writer, Garth Ennis.  I've made it a point in the dozen or so years since to buy anything I see with his name on it, and he has rarely disappointed me. 
     But out of all of them, ‘Hitman’ was my favorite.  That book made me laugh every month, even when the storyline was somber (Who Dares Wins, For Tomorrow). Typically it would be because of something Tommy and his best friend Natt the Hat were arguing about, but there was always the absurdity of Moe and Joe Dubbelz (Siamese twin crime bosses, one of which was dead), Baytor (a demon prince/bartender, whose lines pretty much consist of 'I AM BAYTOR!' over and over again) or Dog Welder (whose power was to weld dogs to people's faces) if the dialogue wasn't as witty as usual. 
     Combine that with the oddities usually emanating from Injun Peak, the local R&D facility (like the time portal that unleashes dinosaurs on Gotham city, or the chemical that resulted in the Zombie Night at the Gotham Aquarium story), and you had a book that was, in today's terms, like Joss Whedon's Firefly - maybe not a smashing ratings or sales hit, but brilliant and fanatically loved by those who had given it a chance.  It's no wonder that I loved this book, in retrospect - I'm the type who prefers Firefly to the dreary new Battlestar Galactica any day.  When this book ended, a little part of my joy in the comic book hobby died.
     So, when I saw the listing on the week's comics for JLA/Hitman...well...a definite 'Squee!' moment happened. I practically tore the cover off this book in my rush to get it open and see all my old pals again.  And man...I wasn't disappointed.  In fact, I was a little dewy eyed when I saw the picture of the whole gang from Noonan's a few pages into the book.

     The story ties back into issue 34 of Hitman's original run - still one of my all time favorite single issues in comic history, and my favorite Superman story.  In that issue, Tommy met a despondent Superman on the roof of a building in Gotham.  Superman, having just failed to save the life of an astronaut on a doomed shuttle mission, is pondering his role as a hero. Tommy talks to him about what it means to be a hero, and about the joy he finds in being an American and knowing that 'big blue' is out there watching over us.  By the end of the issue, Superman is returned to his pedestal, and after he flies away Tommy carries out the hit he was on the roof for in the first place.
     In JLA/Hitman, we find Clark Kent giving a story to a young reporter about a previously unknown 'team-up' between Tommy and the JLA.  It seems the aliens from the Bloodlines mega-crossover of the early 90's (the source of Tommy's telepathy and x-ray vision) have been discovered on an experimental shuttle making its return trip to Earth.  The JLA have it in a holding pattern near their moon base, and since Tommy is pretty much the last survivor of the original Bloodlines 'victims', Batman decides to go grab him up and kill two birds with one stone (i.e., use his blood to help solve the new problem and maybe get a little revenge on Tommy for the whole barfing thing).  Hilarity ensues as Batman lectures Tommy about his moral reprehensibility, only to have Superman come in and shake Tommy's hand and thank him for being such a great guy (Superman, of course, had no idea what Tommy did for a living). 
There are also several amusing lines such as Flash lamenting that 'you can't just show up one day and be super' (oh, really, Wally?), and pretty much everybody on the JLA busting Kyle Rayner's cojones every chance they get for being 'the new guy' (Wally goes so far as to call him a child that wandered into the adults' conversation).  The big inside joke here is Tommy being saved by Kyle following an implosion of the moon base's protective shield, and Tommy saying GL has always been his favorite hero, the best of the best (Ennis has said that he believes Green Lantern is the stupidest superhero ever...not that Kyle Rayner should have ever been Green Lantern, but that's another article...).
     The only thing missing so far is the near-stereotypical completely over the top Garth Ennis moment...but there's still an issue to go (though learning that an associate of Tommy's once made cheese from his girlfriend's breast milk is right up there).

Either way...sign me up.  And please, whatever powers that be...more Hitman would make the world a better place.  Bueno.

Issue One of the JLA/Hitman is still on Sale...$2.99 DC Comics
Issue Two is due out October 3rd!