Some thoughts about Lazarus Planet: Alpha #1

Who can protect the world from the biggest supernatural threats?

Batman and Robin thought that the devil Nezha was the most powerful magical being they could face but they will learn that there are even more dangerous creatures out there connected to him and to fight them, they will need their own supernatural army.

Well, the crossover event that pretty much came out of nowhere just started and I have to admit that I had my worries early on. I have said before that Mark Waid can be a rather hit and miss writer for me and sadly a lot of his misses come from his event stories that have never been particularly good, worse than that actually, they're usually pretty dull but there was some hope out there since he was going to be accompanied in writing duties by Gene Luen Yang... who I also have a hit and miss history with but enough about that, how does the story start?

Well, pretty mediocre actually even for my expectations.

Let's start with one of the biggest issues here, if you haven't been following Waid's Batman Vs. Robin (which I wouldn't blame you since that's easily Waid's current worst book) you won't understand a thing about what's happening here. Event books should do a decent enough job at selling the premise for new readers and there are way too many things going on here and very little explanation for them but even for someone like myself who has been following Waid's books, this is a rather abrupt opening. The flow of the read doesn't help either since the issue is very fight-focused and with a very erratic pacing, it seems like Waid thought that's what people want from these kind of stories but didn't know how to implement it correctly.

Good aspects? Well, there are a few decent character moments here like Monkey Prince and Black Alice's interactions, the few scenes of Blue Devil are fun and the use of the magic characters from the DCU seems promising but aside from that, the opening chapter is too action-oriented to allow much for a proper plot.

Riccardo Federici handles the art and his dark style is pretty fitting for the tone of the book, he's able to deliver a lot of detail despite of it.

Yang doesn't contribute anything at all to the main plot actually and instead he offers a second story about the background between Monkey Prince and Nezha and is actually much better in that regard since it explores the relationship between the two and gives a better insight for the whole premise. Billy Tan handles the art and is quite solid with expressive characters and a energetic style.

Yeah, not the best start. Don't know what to expect next.