Christopher Chance se gana la vida disfrazándose de clientes cuya vida corre peligro. En otras palabras, es un blanco humano. Sin embargo, esta vez, suplantar a Lex Luthor le ha salido muy caro, y dispone de 12 días para averiguar quién lo va a matar... y los principales sospechosos son los miembros de la Liga de la Justicia Internacional. El guionista Tom King y el dibujante Greg Smallwood recuperan a un personaje mítico del pasado de DC Comics en Blanco Humano, una historia que ha fascinado a lectores del mundo entero por saber combinar a la perfección los superhéroes con el espionaje y el género negro. El sello Black Label se ha convertido en un gran activo de la actual DC Comics no solo por el talento de sus autores sino también por la calidad de unas historias que no deben encajar necesariamente en la continuidad habitual. Blanco humano es una de las últimas muestras del éxito que supone combinar los dos factores.
Still quite good, but my least favourite of the Tom King reinterpretations. In this, the eponymous Human Target is poisoned, while serving as a body double for Lex Luthor, and has only 12 days (or issues!) to live. Will our hero be able to figure out who tried to kill Luthor and got him instead?
It’s neat to see King’s darkening or maturing of classic comic teams and tropes. Here it’s the Justice League International that makes up the group of suspects. This makes for a comic that mixes hard boiled detective noir with technicolour heroes.
The art is great, but i really wish we got a slightly more compelling story to go along with it. To me, it’s firmly okay throughout, but never hits the highs of King’s other strange elseworld tales.
People seem to love this so I guess I'm missing something because I didn't find this interesting, mysterious, insightful. or entertaining. Tom King is so hit-and-miss he might as well be the NES Zapper being used on a flatscreen TV.
Por empezar por lo más positivo, me gusta mucho el dibujo de Greg Smallwood, limitado en las opciones narrativas pero con un trazo muy años 60 que grita portada de libro pulp. Más me cuesta entrar en el trabajo de King, al que hay que alabar su deseo de hacer suyos personajes de DC sacándolos de la continuidad, pero que termina liando cosas innecesarias y rompiendo la suspensión de la incredulidad con chorradas como el veneno que se saca de la manga para matar al Blanco humano, todo lo que rodea a la muerte de Guy Gardner, el puñetazo a Ganthet... Añádele una historia de una simpleza atroz (en la superficie es un quién lo hizo y en el subtexto es un quién lo hizo con un romance) que hubiera funcionado mejor condensada en seis u ocho números, con iteraciones de secuencias superfluas (vale, la pareja pasa mucho tiempo en la cama, lo hemos pillado), ridículas narraciones fragmentadas en una historia que no las requería... Y es una pena porque hay otras cosas que sí engranan, como la historia de amor o cómo rompe con la ingenuidad habitual de Hielo.
Tom King's love letter to pulp fiction, noir, and the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League. The mystery was easy enough to figure out, my curse and all that, but it was finely scripted, and beautifully illustrated by Greg Smallwood that all that matters was enjoying the ride.
Tom King calls Human Target his passion project — the comic he always wanted to write — and you feel it on every single page. This isn’t a murder mystery dressed up with emotional depth. The emotional depth IS the mystery, and the noir scaffolding is just the vehicle King uses to ask questions about love, revenge, mortality, and what it means to live fully in the time you have left.
Christopher Chance has spent his whole life being other people, and it takes dying to finally make him present in his own story. King takes that irony and runs with it beautifully. And Ice — who you’d expect to be the warm, wholesome heart of the JLI — becomes one of the most complex, tragic femme fatales in recent comics memory. She loves him. She killed him. She never stops being both things at once.
Greg Smallwood’s mid-century aesthetic makes every panel feel like a memory you’re already mourning. The nine-panel grid becomes a countdown you feel in your chest.
This is a comic that cost King something personal to make. You can feel it in every page. And that’s exactly what makes it unforgettable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
In dodici giorni, il veleno assunto da Christopher Chance lo ucciderà. Lo ha bevuto al posto del magnate criminale Lex Luthor. Perché Chance è lo Human Target, una persona che viene assoldata proprio per morire al posto del suo cliente. Le indagini lo portano a stingere il cerchio intorno alla Justice League International, i supereroi incaricati di difendere la Terra.
La forma, dipinta magistralmente da Smallwood, è indubbiamente il punto di forza di questo fumetto. Lo stile ritrattistico, l'uso dei colori netti e incredibilmente pop, restituiscono una accattivante atmosfera anni '60 che tiene alta la qualità narrativa anche negli snodi più maldestri.
La storia, prettamente noir, è abbastanza semplice nel suo intreccio e alcuni risvolti non sono perfetti. Ma l'interessante struttura narrativa ci trasporta nel mondo di Chance fissandolo come protagonista assoluto, nonostante la presenza dei superumani della DC. Impossibile non notare l'enorme tributo a "Watchmen" nella dilatazione del tempo nella scena del passaggio del sale. Fumetto consigliato.
Nejsem největší fanoušek Toma Kinga. Jeho Batman: Killing Time byl otravnej a překomplexovanej a jeho Wonder Woman je tak ubíjející, že sem ji vzdal asi po deseti číslech.
Ale ty vole. The Human Target je jedna z nejlepších (a díky Gregu Smallwoodovi i jedna z nejkrásnějších) knížek, co sem kdy četl. Nejen komiksů. Knížek.
Me ha gustado mucho como casi todas las obras de Tom King. El problema con este autor es que las premisas me gustan y disfruto de su desarrollo y de la calidad que siempre alcanza pero hay veces en las que pierden ritmo y me aburren. Tengo la sensación de que quiere resultar tan brillante, tan inteligente que en ocasiones se hace denso y confuso. Además veo cierta repetición de patrones con otras obras como strange adventures o Rorschach que me dan la sensación de ya haberlo leído antes. Pero dicho esto, gran calidad y muy por encima de lo habitual. El dibujo, una locura.
A self-insert Y/N fanfic for the boys who love comic books and imagining themselves as Humphrey Bogart. I am fundamentally unconvinced by this. I am unconvinced by the idea behind Mr. Target's character in general, and by his character journey in this run. One would think, the set up of investigating your own murder under a hard deadline, with every member of the Temu Justice League being on the suspect list could only ever be fun. Well, one would be wrong. The Human Target is not really a mystery, it's a very forced romance that goes through the motions of detective fiction, while our protagonist is sad, allegedly hardboiled, drinks a lot, and is irresistible to women. It really wants to be noir fiction but mostly deals in superficial noir tropes. I like Tom King as a writer, but here he is too self-indulgent and way too verbose. Whoever thought that having dialogue and inner monologue cluttering panels at the same time was a good idea was wrong. This just goes to show that boundaries and restrictions are actually good for a comics writer and his team.
It doesn't help that Mr. Target is not a well-established character, and that his main trait is passivity. Tom King added a huge Batman fakeout to this story, which works well with his core concept that Mr. Human Target here is a Batman reject. He also has to witness horrific murder of his father at a young formative age, he also decides to use this trauma to serve and to find his place in the world, he also is angsty and full of daddy issues, he also is a detective who uses disguise. By all means, he should be Batman Jr. - but he is not, and so he gets introspective and dies about it. Very sad. The only thing I liked about The Human Target outside of the very impressive visuals was when it reminded me of Doom Patrol. If you want great comics noir vibes, just read book 1 of Last Knight on Earth or Tom King's very own The Winning Card. If you want a fun comics about investigating your own poisoning while dying in real time, read Batman: Europa. The irony of leaving Batman recs in this review is not lost on me. What is also not lost on me is the fact that I keep calling the protagonist Mr. Target because I can't remember his name to save my life, despite staring at it for two days straight. Some things just belong to obscurity.
Beautiful artwork though, its vintage colours and the crayon look will stick with me for a long time.
I knew the Human Target by writer Greg Smallwood and artist Tom King would be great, but even still, I'm impressed by this project. King takes what could have been an old Hitchcock movie and reframes its narrative backbone around a cast of established superheroes and a deep sense of existential dread.
The story is a self-contained mystery with clever twists and a satisfying conclusion. Mysteries often fizzle out in monthly superhero comics, but King, a disciple of Alan Moore, prioritizes story structure and clearly maps out the reveals and twists from the start. Christopher Chance's investigation into who has poisoned him is a vehicle for checking in on a variety of characters and settings, but more importantly for getting into the heads of both Chance and his co-investigator, Ice. I wasn't familiar with either character beforehand, and King clearly takes some liberties that longtime fans may not appreciate. But divorced from continuity, this is a genuinely moving story I could comfortably recommend to almost anyone, superhero reader or not. Human Target is a self-contained story with the depth of a prose novel.
As much as I appreciate King’s brisk plotting and smart script, the star of the show is Smallwood, who delivers career-best work on this project. Smallwood leans heavily on photo reference and modeling, though his graceful, surprisingly loose linework keeps the art from becoming stiff or lifeless. This disciplined use of reference pays off most in his facial expressions, through which he captures subtext with impressive precision. That photorealism is counterbalanced by Smallwood's embrace of midcentury illustration: color blocks, angular linework in backgrounds, and vibrant, nearly psychedelic palettes that deliberately avoid black (a deliberate departure from the dreariness of typical noir visuals). Each page is visually stunning and unlike any other superhero comic I’ve read.
Seriously, Human Target is a graphic novel where the art alone merits a read, and King’s script is worthy of Smallwood’s art. This is the perfect comic to gift to my comics-curious friends.
Tengo mis altibajos con Tom King, y luego de algún que otro desacuerdo, vuelve a deslumbrarme con Human Target, donde demuestra que es capaz de (re)escribir personajes olvidados de DC sin llegar al extremo de destruirlos, como hizo por ejemplo, a mi modo de ver en Strange Adventures. Luego de un memorable comienzo, la intriga y el suspenso nunca desaparecen. La puesta a punto de cada capítulo resulta muy útil, más aun cuando el plantel de invitados (JLI) era prácticamente una novedad para mi, sumado al hecho de que King construye todo su engranaje en base a la personalidad de muchos de ellos.
Greg Smallwood resultó todo un descubrimiento, un trabajo sobresaliente basado en una estética retro cincuentera aplicada al comic de superhéroes. Un artista que maneja magistralmente diferentes niveles de definición en sus viñetas, primeros planos realistas y expresivos, entornos con trazos simplificados y fondos muchas veces apenas bosquejados. Utiliza también sorprendentes cortes angulares para diferenciar color e iluminación y junto a una paleta intensa consigue dar marco perfecto al tono de comedia noir que King propone para la obra. Preciosa la edición de Ovni Press.
Wow. Just an amazing love letter to old-school detective stories and noir. A love letter to obscure DC characters. And some genuinely great writing and prose. This is not a children's book. It has all the typical comic censorship of swearing and stuff like that but it has lots of violent, sexual, and mature themes. In short, it's like a 30's detective novel.
Christopher Chance is the Human Target. You think someone is after you? Someone planning on killing you? You hire The Human Target. He'll disguise himself and take the shot for you. Then, he'll investigate and figure out who/how/why did it. But, who has killed The Human Target? While on a case stopping a murder, he accidentally is poisoned by a second murder plot. He has 12 days to investigate his poisoning and get revenge before he dies. Who could it be? And could it have even been one of the Justice League?
Tom King is very hit or miss for me. I love his Vision miniseries. I think his Batman run is average. Meh. But this is my favorite of his yet.
So I was settling in the rating for this book and I was thinking 4 stars. I like King in general and although clever, I did not find Human Target amongst his best. A 3 star rating seemed fair. Now, the art. OMG the art, Smallwood did something so gorgeous and layered and with all the right references that had to be no less than 5 stars. And then I saw the process pages that come as extras in the deluxe and I was somewhat disappointed on how Smallwood managed that gorgeous art and I thought that maybe it was not for 5 stars. And at the same time King's script kept coming back to me, and yeah, it's 4 stars for each.
As for my art disappointment? well, maybe we shouldn't find out how the sausage is made. my bad.
Pretty good. Really good actually. One thing that bothered me: SPOILERS AHEAD Guy Gardner dies in the middle of the book, but actually he doesn't now in the context of the story it makes sense but I hoped there would be more hints to this revelation. They also explain that Gardner used his ring to create a fake version of himself that dies. I know this is not mainline continuity, but unless I'm mistaken a Green Lantern has never actualy done that. They normally make green constructs. I would have liked it if an illusionist character was dragged into the sheme, hinting at their involvment early.
It's a bit of a nitpick but whatever.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Books like this are so fun. I don't know if I could read detective books all of the time, but if I can keep the frequency just right, the familiar beats read as "classic" rather than "cliché." Greg Smallwood's illustrations compliment the story perfectly, and, specifically, his coloring. The palette was perfect and the way the colors bleed outside of the lines is such a great touch. My only complaint is that end comes a little too early. I like my denouements at the very end.
I still remember reading JLI issues at the grocery store while my mom was shopping, so coming back to the key characters of that era was a nice return. But the story is very different in tone and focus; it's quite a balancing act to keep the character's personalities in this different genre of story. Very noir, and while the mystery ends up playing out just about as you would expect for a noir story, it's the journey that makes it a worthwhile and beautiful read.
Christopher Chance is the Human Target, a reverse hitman who impersonates clients when their life is at risk. While posing as Lex Luthor, Chance consumes a toxin intended for the supervillain and is soon given a prognosis of only twelve days to live. The presence of an otherworldly trace element in his bloodstream seems to lay blame upon a member of the JLI, all of whom possess the same contaminant as the result of an interstellar conflict. While attempting to deduce his inadvertent killer before he dies, the Human Target finds himself navigating a potentially duplicitous romance and unwrapping layers of conspiracy around the motivations behind his poisoning.
Smallwood's art in this book is just an absolute joy, a love letter to the design sensibilities of the mid twentieth century seamlessly integrated within a modern day thriller shell. The sketchy chalk / charcoal line work, contrasting of cooler color tones with high saturation pop-art palettes, soft yet angular lighting, and mid-century production design combine to construct an impeccably stylish and engaging aesthetic that I could not get enough of. Covers, title cards, and graphic design elements capably channel the genius of Saul Bass and David Klein, adding to the effortlessly cool personality of the visual presentation. Flowers must also be given to letterer Clayton Cowles for his engaging and broad font choices that feel like a playful homage to Hannah Barbara and 1960s poster typefaces, in addition to the routinely creative text latouts.
Narrative storytelling in Human Target is chock full of king-isms; disjointed dialogue and narration threads, severe and cheeky tones clashing, numerous interleaved timelines, rocky romance forward plotting, frequent internal soliloquizing, and cynical (potentially "character assassinating") re-imaginings of peripheral DC universe characters. For better or worse, it's a King book through and through and if his schtick hasn't worked for you in the past I can't imagine it working for you here. As someone who quite likes his storytelling style but finds the individual applications rather hit or miss, I was happy to discover this instance very much aligned with my tastes. Despite taking a few issues to fully grab me and having some occasional clunky line delivery, I found this revenge narrative turned dramedy-of-errors thoroughly entertaining and creatively told. Nearly every issue utilizes a distinct narrative structure while integrating new characters and emergent events, satisfying both as self contained yarns and as a progression of the overarching plot. My favorite example of this being the issue where Chase infers Martian Manhunter's involvement in the poisoning within the time it takes to pick up a salt shaker.
So che non dovrei permettermi di criticare un autore affermato, ma Tom King per l'ennesima volta non ci racconta niente per 12 uscite. Chiaro che coi di segni di Smallwood chiunque sembrerebbe un grande sceneggiatore.