Human Target

by Tom King, Greg Smallwood (Illustrator)

Christopher Chance est une cible vivante professionnelle dont la réputation n'est plus à démontrer. Son métier consiste à endosser l'apparence et la psychologie de ses clients afin d'inviter les assassins potentiels à tenter de le tuer. Un jour, alors qu'il est en charge de la protection de Lex Luthor, les choses dérapent. Chance a désormais douze jours pour découvrir l'assassin.

Contenu vo : #1-12 + Tales of the Human Target #1

Genres: Comics

424 pages, Paperback

Published October 27, 2023

Reviews

[Luke Muench · Rating 4 out of 5]

Human Target is the type of story that I equivocate to my experience of Knives Out; a colorful story of charismatic characters featuring a whodunit narrative that offers diminishing returns each time you read it. My first read through, this had been a 5, this time it was a 3, so I'm averaging the two out for an overall score of 4. There's a lot of talent on display here, with some fantastic art providing this book a beautiful aesthetic. And even on my second pass, King's writing still grabs me as he explores ideas of the lies we tell ourselves and others. It's definitely worth a read, but I would argue this is a one-and-done for sure, largely because knowing the ending can make long sections of the story drag. There are issues that simply don't hold any punch or impact the second time through that, while I didn't love the first time around, at least provided a tension that drove the story forward.

The best issues to me are the ones that allow us an in-depth look into one of the various JLI heroes, namely issues 3, 4, and 10. You might note that those issues don't have as much of our two leads present and that's because, while their respective character arcs are interesting, I don't find them to be especially appealing characters. Their relationship, while enjoyable to follow, feels somewhat frustrating to parse, and I don't really know how much of a sense I have for where they stand by the end of the story. In some ways, they feel like they are given as much depth as the minor characters of the story, which I think does the story a disservice in that respect.

There are also some really weird typos sprinkled throughout the series as a whole that really chafes me. We live in a day and age when those mistakes can be adjusted pretty easily from a digital perspective, yet they're left alone, distracting little moments that take me out of the story as I have to reread a word bubble 3 times to understand what's being said. Even beyond the ability to fix it in post, these are fairly obvious errors, they should have been relatively easy to catch. How this slipped past quality control is beyond me.

The last thing I'll note here is a lot of folks have issues with how King portrays some of the more well-known heroes, whereas others defends this by saying this is set in an alt reality, being a Black Label comic. While I have no deep knowledge of these characters to the degree others would, I do think it's a problem when these characters are portrayed as flanderized versions of themselves for the sake of the plot, regardless if whether or not I'm familiar enough to recognize it. While this is an alt universe, it is similar enough to the standard continuity that I think dramatic changes to characterization in this manner should be called out.

[Someul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coup de coeur.
C'était trop bien autant l'histoire que les planches. Je suis ravi d'avoir lu ça enfin 🤌👌

[Manuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Après tout, il ne s'agit pas d'une histoire de bien et de mal, de gentils et de vilains à combattre, mais bien d'une histoire d'amour...

[Przemysław Skoczyński · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom King potwierdza własną klasę, proponując historię gościa, który wie, że za chwilę umrze. Główny bohater jest częścią superbohaterskiego universum, choć sam się za bohatera nie uważa. To komiks idealny dla tych, którzy u Kinga cenią przede wszystkim zepchnięcie tej całej infantylnej otoczki na drugi plan, by powiedzieć coś ważniejszego. Muszę przyznać, że czyta się to świetnie. "Człowiek cel" ma swój regularny rytm, detektywistyczną zagadkę i świetne grafiki, które moja żona określiła jako "idealne do komiksu o Bondzie". Bardzo polecam

[Amritesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stylish, slow-burn mystery with a noir tone, following Christopher Chance as he tries to solve his own murder before time runs out. The story moves at a measured pace, slowly revealing new secrets through quiet conversations and building tension. The underlying melancholy deepens as the story progresses, while the clean art gives the retro setting a vivid look.