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Becky Cloonan, Michael W Conrad and Michael Avon Oeming’s Midnighter Annual #1 takes readers into a brutal sci-fi wonderland full of surprises.
Between his recent appearances in Future State: Superman and Superman and the Authority, the Wildstorm hero Midnighter has been making a DC Comics comeback. Known for his brutal approach to crime-fighting, Midnighter and his partner Apollo are reckoning forces not to be challenged lightly. Written by Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad and with artwork by Michael Avon Oeming, colors by Taki Soma, and lettering by Dave Sharpe, Midnighter Annual #1 is a wild sci-fi story that proves just how tough Midnighter is.
Midnighter Annual #1 begins with Midnighter and Mister Miracle fighting an army of cyborgs while Apollo watches. Apollo is angry with his partner for hiding missions details from him. He resents the fact that after all they’ve gone through in both their professional and romantic relationships, Midnighter is still keeping secrets. As the battle rages on, Midnighter explains that he comes from a future timeline seen in Future State: Superman. This Midnighter is trying to trade places with the earlier version of himself who’s stuck in Warworld in his future. As the three heroes try to fix the time-travel paradox they’re stuck in, they become more and more enmeshed with the evil genius Andrej Trojan and his robotic followers.
Cloonan and Conrad throw the audience right into the thick of the action in this convoluted sci-fi saga, but the familiar and charming dynamic between Midnighter and Apollo anchors the plot. The couple’s banter helps the reader catch up with the story’s fast pace. Perhaps most impressive about Cloonan and Conrad’s writing is their ability to establish and explore multiple complicated concepts in a short amount of time — like explaining time travel and the endlessly daunting implications of computer-augmented consciousness as it pertains to identity and free will. But they manage to thoroughly investigate these ideas without losing the thread of the narrative or cutting away from the Midnighter Annual #1’s action.
Michael Avon Oeming, whose iconic art has graced the pages of countless comics including James Tynion IV’s upcoming Blue Book, does some especially incredible work in Midnighter Annual #1. His style is fairly simple at first glance, but he manages to convey a huge range of emotions and his action compositions are as beautiful as they are exciting. Oeming captures the chaos of the story without sacrificing any clarity. The action is easy to read and his illustrations of Midnighter’s subconscious are at once dreamy and subtle. Taki Soma’s colors set the tone for each scene and help the reader make sense of the non-stop action.
Midnighter Annual #1 is a satisfying conclusion to Cloonan and Conrad’s Midnighter back-up stories in Future State: Superman; but even readers who are unfamiliar with the events leading up to this issue will be able to understand and enjoy Midnighter’s time-travel ordeal. The entire creative team has put together a singular story that juggles several moving parts without missing a beat and is quite possibly one of the best Midnighter stories in the character’s already impressive history.
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