HALCYON

What began as a clever concept about what superheroes would do in a world with no violence, no aggression, and no need for them, ended as a much different story about a man becoming his own worst enemy. To go from something so big to something so focused and personal is surprising and, when it hits, it hits hard. However, how it works within the context of the entire story is questionable. The ending of “Halcyon” #5 is an unexpected treat, albeit one that doesn’t retroactively make the story better. It merely highlights the flaws in how the story was structured and built. Sabre discovered that villain Oculus created a device that is responsible for the newfound lack of violence and aggression on Earth and, when he tried to destroy it, he found himself confronted by his fellow heroes, all of them willing to fight for the new status quo. Here, Sabre fights against his former allies and, in the process, becomes a villain. That transformation was so gradual until this point that when it

The first issue of “Halcyon” showed promise and potential but seemed more like a teaser issue than a first issue meant to hook you. The second issue steps up to fill that role in a more satisfying way, though not perfectly. Picking up a month after the first issue, the world is now free of crime and major aggression, leaving superheroes in an interesting and unexpected position. The approach to the series is a smart one, but the characters still lack the necessary depth for us to care about them. With no crime to stop, the heroes of this world have nothing to do. Transom, the speedster, is the only one who can do anything because he’s the only fast enough to reach natural disasters and accidents around the world. The other heroes struggle with being obsolete, each in their own way. However, we don’t get much insight into any of the heroes. The only ones that come off as something beyond generic supers are Sabre and Zenith, and even Zenith doesn’t get much time on-panel. She’s the onl

“The groundbreaking new series dares to ask: What happens when the superheroes win? What happens once there is no crime, no war? The heroes of ‘Halcyon’ achieve their final victory only to face their greatest challenge ever.” That’s how the press release for “Halcyon,” the first title from Marc Guggenheim’s Collider Entertainment imprint at Image Comics, ends, summing up the book and its high concept. I’m a bit of a sucker for superhero books that ask questions like this and have been looking forward to this title since it was first announced as “Utopian” at Comic-Con International: San Diego, but this debut issue is so focused on setting things up that it would be easy to mistake it for the oft-used zero issue teaser that comes out before the ‘real’ first issue. The first issue of “Halcyon” introduces the heroes and villain of the book as well as the situation: crime has been decreasing, slowly at first, but, now, at an exponential rate. The heroes of Halcyon don’t know how or why,