BAD DUDES: Power Man, Shaft, and David Walker's Very Good Week

The cover of SHAFT #1. The variants are handsome, too.

I didn't plan to buy and compare two books with NYC-based black vigilantes this week, but oh, am I glad I did. If you aren't following David F. Walker yet, oh, you will be.

Both of the books I read this week feature characters that have captured the popular consciousness through television appearances, but beyond that, they couldn't be more different...even in terms of how they represent themselves when compared to their audiovisual counterparts.

Power Man & Iron Fist #1, featuring art from Sanford Greene, is a stylistic feat for the Marvel relaunch. Within its pages, Luke Cage and Danny Rand pal around New York City to help their old friend and recently-freed office manager, Jennie, retrieve an amulet with a great, though implied, power. The MacGuffin here is rather inconsequential, although it does lead to a fun encounter with a wonderfully drawn Tombstone.

Seriously, look how cool Tombstone looks. Sanford Greene pulled no stylistic punches with this debut.

Thankfully, the real highlight of the story here is the banter between Luke and Danny. Their conflict is clear and well-worn in a familiar, fun way. Luke Cage is now a total family man, with his wife Jessica and his baby girl waiting at home. He doesn't want to be called Power Man at any point, and Jessica even takes shots at his old tiara. Danny, however, can't wait to be Iron Fist, changing in the car and preferring to be called his superhero name by people who know his true identity. Danny's ready to jump back in and make Heroes for Hire work, while Luke insists that they are only friends now, and not business partners.

TANGENT ALERT: Of all the shifts Marvel has made after Secret Wars to make their print universe seem more like the MCU, it really stands out to me that they haven't shifted Jessica Jones back to a more independent, dark state. Daredevil couldn't look more like Charlie Cox, I'm pretty sure they've stenciled Iron Man panels over shots of RDJ, and Reed and Sue Richards may as well be on the thinly-veiled FOX planet. Seeing 13 episodes of Jessica Jones cussing, drinking, and giving Luke Cage the sweetest of Christmases makes it all the stranger to read her asking her husband to clean up his potty mouth around their daughter, for whom she stays home and does not work. TANGENT OVER.

Greene's amazing angles (check out his final page arrangements of Jennie and Black Mariah, and how they become equals after a boisterous intro for Mariah) and the confident, consistent color scheme for the book provide an interesting canvas for Walker's story, which plays with toys that he clearly loves (I could read the banter between the Heroes for Hire for hours) while warming up to something significant. It follows the current Marvel debut pattern of small-time villain (although, how the Hell did the Heroes for Hire end up fighting someone more exciting than the Avengers? #forgetWarbringer) attacking the heroes, leading to a bigger threat down the line.

Luke Cage & Iron Fist #1 is definitely a fun read, but I'm not yet sure if it's essential (it drops the same week as Silver Surfer, and Marvel isn't sending me free books...yet...) for the casual reader. The reintroduction of Black Mariah at the issue's end signals a clear direction for the book, and Greene's art paired with Walker's words is a combo not to be counted out for the next few months.

Another Walker book, however, is not to be missed, period. Shaft: Imitation of Life #1, with story and words by Walker and art by Dietrich Smith, is a nail-biting distillation of everything I enjoy about blaxploitation and comic books, played with absolutely zero irony. In the book, John Shaft is a straight-talking Vietnam veteran and current private detective. He's taken a few courses on literature, so he knows a thing or two about word choice. He frequently emphasizes that he wants to dehumanize his enemies, in order to make them easier to kill. However, it's John who seems to be losing his touch with the human race throughout the book.

"Easier" is the operative word for John Shaft, as he remains haunted by every life he takes in the book.

Like any great noir protagonist, Shaft never quite accepts the call to heroism, but rather stumbles in to the role through ambivalence and avoidance of his real problems. He takes cases to help block out the awful memories of Vietnam, and to help convince himself that he is a hero and not a monster. Walker's understanding of this character is so deep that even the smallest panels contain so much information, and every line either begins or furthers an internal conflict for John Shaft.

All of the fun of a Shaft story is here too. You can practically feel Walker joyfully off of his Marvel leash, as Shaft curses like a sailor and leaves his lover nearly comatose. Readers can understand why it might be tempting to live like John Shaft, even with the "monster" deep inside you, because it seems like so much damned fun. Dietrich Smith does a great job of turning Walker's words into a cinematic Hellscape of New York City, too. Splash pages tell the story of Shaft's morning commute, one action sequence unfolds like the side-scrolling fight in Oldboy, and Shaft's aforementioned lover seems to have all the toppings.

Shaft finds himself failing even as he succeeds, fighting to free trafficked humans and confused, lost souls in darker corners of the city throughout the story. Even at the darkest point in the story, I never lost faith, most importantly, that David F. Walker was fully in control of the yarn he's spinning. Walker's work with the big 2 publishers is more beneficial for them than it is for him (he single-handedly brought Cyborg back to relevance in time for his movie), and you can feel him truly flexing with a book like Imitation of Life. While Luke Cage can't figure out if he wants to go by Power Man or not, everyone in another fictional NYC already knows the greatest superhero is named John Shaft.

Power Man & Iron Fist #1
Buy It, Wait for Unlimited, or Skip It: Wait for Unlimited

Shaft:Imitation of Life #1
Buy It or Skip It: Buy It