Warning: contains spoilers for Danger Street #1!The comic world of Tom King and Jorge Fornes' Danger Street is a concept that shouldn't work at all. It features a bevy of bizarre characters from unconnected one-shots in a '70s anthology that time forgot, DC's 1st Issue Special. However, thanks to some clever storytelling and connecting the New Gods, a group of kid billionaires, a police officer begrudgingly referred to as Lady Cop, and a trio of heroes with one of the dumbest plans ever to join the Justice League, Danger Street #1 ends up being a complete blast from start to finish.
The 1st Issue Special was a failed experiment by DC Comics in the 1970s to introduce new heroes to its universe, with the intent of using the anthology as a launchpad for new ongoing titles. DC hoped readers would latch onto the stories, which never really happened. The comics included stories starring the Dingbats of Danger Street, the Green Team, Metamorpho, Manhunter, Lady Cop, Atlas, the Creeper, the Warlord, Doctor Fate, the Outsiders (not the Batman team), Codename: Assasin, Starman, and the New Gods. Despite the one-shots being done by comic legends including Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Ramona Fradon, Mike Grell, Joe Simon, and Steve Ditko, the new characters introduced in the series essentially went nowhere and faded into obscurity, and even the familiar faces didn't gain much traction. However, now the world of Danger Street is coming together nearly 50 years after 1st Issue Special debuted, in one of the most unlikely ways.
In DC's new Danger Street maxiseries, Tom King, Jorge Fornes, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Clayton Cowles take readers to one of the last places expected to be revisited in the DC Universe - the world of 1st Issue Special. The book has a relatively simple premise: Warlord, Starman, and Metamorpho are tired of being rejected by the Justice League, so they concoct a plan to use Doctor Fate's helmet to summon Darkseid, capture the mega villain, and earn the respect of the greatest heroes in the DC Universe. However, their scheme has one major hitch: they summon a god named Atlas instead, who isn't too happy to see them.
Danger Street Gives a Historic Failure a New Legacy
Tom King (Mister Miracle, Strange Adventures) ditches his usual introspective, deeply personal character studies in favor of a story that's unlike any he's ever penned before. While at first it's not obvious how Danger Street's many characters connect, the overarching story becomes more apparent, with each domino falling in the first issue. Manhunter is tasked with killing the Green Team, who are funding Creeper's Randian new talk show. Meanwhile, Starman, Metamorpho, and Warlord head to the desert to summon Darkseid, which puts them in direct conflict with Lady Cop and the Dingbats. King juggles a lot of storylines but manages to find distinctive voices for the odd assortment of characters, and the book never overwhelms despite the many characters and plotlines running simultaneously. While tackling characters Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created might seem intimidating, King keeps the style of the 1970s while blending it with his own.
The book's real star is Jorge Fornes, who previously worked with King on DC's Rorschach. Fornes teams up with colorist Dave Stewart to craft a complex and colorful book that had to be a substantial creative undertaking. Fornes keeps his noir-tinged style throughout the book, ensuring it never feels like 13 stories crammed together, but rather a single narrative. Every panel has a specific purpose, and the layout is intentionally inconsistent to fit each character. While King is a massive fan of the nine-panel grid, Fornes' changing layouts from page to page keep the story flowing. Where Fornes specifically shines is his action sequences, and a blood-soaked Creeper beating the life out of a criminal in a back alley is a sight to behold. Meanwhile, Metamorpho being broken into pieces by Atlas with a single punch shows off the power and weight of the long-forgotten hero - which makes his death via Warlord's sword that much more impactful.
In our prior interview, King told Screen Rant that balancing so many characters meant others weren't going to get as much focus in the series - which makes sense given it's large cast.
I know when I'm dealing with 24 characters, not all of them are going to make it all the way through, and some of them are going to die in the beginning. I knew one way to make this possible was to kill off a few in the very beginning. Atlas was not going to survive, so I wasn't doing deep dives on him. But his impact on the series and what his death means is the key to the whole thing. Even though he is not the star of it in person, the theory of him is really the heart of the entire book.
Danger Street Is the New Series to Watch
It will be fascinating to see more characters from 1st Issue Special get the spotlight in Danger Street, as the more prominent heroes in the anthology, such as Doctor Fate and the New Gods, play small but important roles in the debut issue. However, part of what makes Danger Street zing so smooth is that it rightly gives top billing to the smaller players. The more well-known heroes will play a more substantial role eventually, but what makes the comic interesting is seeing the lesser-known ones shine. Getting a series starring Lady Cop in 2022 is something no-one expected, but which every fan of superhero comics needs to read.
At first glance, the world of Danger Street makes no sense. Connecting Lady Cop to Atlas to Darkseid should result in a chaotic mess. However, King's ability to take characters who have been pushed into obscurity in the DC Universe - as he did with Adam Strange in Strange Adventures - makes for a surprisingly cohesive story thanks to painstaking writing and art. Ultimately, Danger Street is one of DC's best first-issue debuts in some time, which given its origin as a 1st Issue Special, feels totally appropriate.
Danger Street #1 is available now from DC Comics.