‘Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt’ Omnibus Review

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, created by writer/artist and NYPD cop Peter Morisi in 1966, is a property that, despite never gaining any real traction, keeps popping up every couple decades or so. In its original incarnation, the book only ran for about a year under Charlston Comics before being cancelled when Morisi left. After DC Comics bought all of Charlston’s superhero properties in 1983, Peter Cannon appeared in the seminal work, Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986), served as the inspiration for the Ozymandias character in Alan Moore’s 1986 masterpiece Watchmen, and then starred in a short-lived, self-titled series in 1993, which also fell victim to cancellation.

The damn guy just refuses to lay down and die. In 2012, Dynamite announced a 10-issue series, co-written by Steve Darnell and Alex Ross (who also provided some stunning watercolored covers for the series), with interior art handled by Jonathan Lau, that has been collected and is due to release in an omnibus format on March 11th.

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If there’s something innately intriguing about the character that compels creators and publishers to return to it, Darnell and company fail to capture it. The character itself is very much a “man out of time,” a privileged white male who returns to the modern western world after being raised by monks to be “the chosen one.” While Peter Cannon is perhaps the first superhero to introduce Eastern mysticism into American pop culture, it’s an idea that’s been done countless times since, and often better. By that measure, any creative team that takes on the task of making the character relevant in the 21st century already has a potentially upstream swim ahead of them.

The most recent presentation of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt has him returning to modern civilization after enjoying a zenful life of peace in a Tibetan lamasery only to find that, well, the modern world is a terrible and overstimulated place full of war, greed, and strangely-placed Slayer references (see page 32, I can’t figure it out either). Cannon’s efforts to try and save the world from itself—by essentially trying to scare it into self-awareness—backfire, and his response is more or less to walk around whining about how much better his life was before he left the lamasery. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that you should never trust the judgement of monks when it comes to ‘chosen ones.’

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The writing is clichéd and narrative heavy, with captions and speech balloons filling up the bulk of the panels. In addition to “mopey-zoo-lion good guy,” notable supporting characters include fan-favorites such as “mysterious trenchcoat and face-obscuring fedora wearing guy,” “power-hungry military general guy,” “hooded bad guy with a grudge,” “corrupt news organization guy,” and “suspiciously ubiquitous beautiful woman.” The lack of creativity here is surprising because Steve Darnall is a good writer—the Uncle Sam series he and Ross worked on for DC/Vertigo in the late 90’s was nominated for the prestigious Eisner award—who took on a character with such a condensed publishing history that he could’ve done almost anything he wanted to.

As usual, the cover art provided by Alex Ross is nothing short of incredible, which, also par for the course, makes the interiors feel lackluster by comparison. That said, Jonathan Lau is a good artist. He’s consistent, can represent an ethnically diverse cast without resorting to stereotypes, and keeps the characters recognizable throughout, even without the aid of colorful costumes. Lau’s style is easy to follow and read; his page layouts don’t stray too far from conventional, and any action scenes are fast-paced and dynamic enough that it’s a shame there aren’t more of them.

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Given the level of talent involved, Dynamite’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt feels like a missed opportunity to inject some life and longevity into a character that can never seem to get a foothold. Instead, it’s a stale read that features an unlikeable protagonist who takes mediocrity to new lows. Darnell, Ross, and Lau spin a tale that is meant to be the beginning of journey, it’s just difficult to care much about the destination.

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