CHAMBER #1
"The Hollow Man, Chapter One"
Recommended (8/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Pencils: Lee Ferguson
Inks: Norm Rapmund
Colors: Jose Villarrubia
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Mike Raicht
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
Brian K. Vaughan recently turned some heads with the debut of his new DC/Vertigo series, Y: The Last Man. He demonstrated that he likes to tackles intellectual plot material, and that he has a penchant for strong characterization. He does so again here. This is far from the most subtle of stories in its use of Marvel's world of mutants as a real-world racism analogy, but it's well written. And the art ain't nothing to sneeze at neither.
Jonothan Starsmore, AKA Chamber, continues to feel alienated from the rest of the X-Men, thanks to his dramtic physical deformity. He volunteers for an undercover mission, enrolling at Empire State University in order to find out who killed six members of an on-campus mutant rights group. He quickly finds himself the target of anger and violence. On one side is his human roommate, who's bitter over the university's affirmative-action policy regarding mutants, and on the other is a militant mutant group whose members have embraced Magneto's dangerous philsophies.
Ferguson's darker approach and Rapmund's gritty inks combine to capture the weird, gothic look of the title character that cover artist and co-creator (if memory serves) Chris Bachalo established back in Generation X #1. There's also something of a Jae (Inhumans) Lee-meets-Kelley (Sandman) Jones riff going on that's appealing. But the most impressive visual aspect of the book are Villarrubia's colors. His textured, bright and unusual colors bring so much energy and atmosphere to anything he touches; we don't see his work nearly often enough these days.
Vaughan tackles issues of race and social policy here that really ring true. Sure, the plot comes together a little too easily in order to allow for that social exploration, but it's easy to get past it. The emotional, sociological and logical dynamics of the circumstances are thought-provoking. It's easy to see a King vs. X (Malcolm X, not Professor X) philosophical conflict at play here.
But what makes the story really work is that Vaughan has some strong characters to bring the debate to life. The title character's sense of being an outsider among outsiders boasts a lot of potential, but the character that really caught my attention was his new college roommate, Walter. We only see him in two pages here, but he makes a quick impression. Vaughan makes an interesting move, having someone arguing against affirmative action who could easily benefit from it as well.
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