Luther

Luther versus The Bound.

Since it’s been some time since the previous installment of their trilogy, one might think that Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore and Felipe Sobiero would need a little bit of time to settle back in to the world of mysteriously powered strongmen. However, the creative team immediately returns to its brutal, gloriously violent roots with “The Legacy of Luther Strode” #1. Jordan, a great writer full of big concepts, knows that the strength of this series is the art team and wastes no time allowing them to unleash their full power on readers. He ties up previous dangling threads in a breakout scene that sees Strode overpower police and rescue Petra before dashing off into the sunset. Moore takes the monstrously overpowered character and somehow makes his actions seem cartoonish even for a comic. There are anime influences from the battles from classics like “Dragon Ball Z,” “Fist of the North Star” and “Urotsukidoji,” as muscles tense to the point of bursting, characters yell beyond the limit

There’s no denying that “The Legend of Luther Strode” has been a very different beast than its predecessor, “The Strange Talent of Luther Strode.” With the original’s sense of wonder and surprise as Luther Strode learned that his bodybuilding project had a sinister and dangerous undertone, Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore knocked that comic out of the park. But with the darker and much more violent sequel, judged on its own merits, this conclusion is satisfying and feels like everything is positioned well for the eventual third and final mini-series next fall. “The Legend of Luther Strode” #6 serves primarily as mop-up, as Luther and Petra track down the rogue Jack and try and stop his trail of carnage. On the surface, the majority of this issue is about putting that genie back in the bottle (or perhaps just smashing genie and bottle into little bits). It’s a big fight, with a couple of nasty choices to be made along the way. And on that level alone, it works. It’s a big climactic fight

Middle volumes in a trilogy are a hard piece of storytelling to pull off, and I think that’s what readers encounter in “The Legend of Luther Strode” #4. The first book introduces the major concepts and players, and gives a lay of the land. The last book usually wraps everything up in a hopefully satisfying manner. For the middle book, it’s often to primarily transition and get the characters to that conclusion. With “The Legend of Luther Strode” #4 (and the mini-series in general), I think it’s still in transition mode. I’m not saying “The Legend of Luther Strode” has been a bad mini-series, not by any stretch of the imagination. I still like Luther and Petra as characters, and I feel like Justin Jordan is giving a lot of interesting concepts in regards to both Luther’s powers as well as the history of the ability. But there’s no denying that this issue (and story in general) is a lot more fight-scene oriented than the original “The Strange Talent of Luther Strode” mini-series. It’s

Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore’s “The Strange Talent of Luther Strode” mini-series put both creators on the radar of the comics, and with good reason; their take on the idea of a send-away “gain muscle fast!” offer got dark and twisted while still remaining compelling reading. “The Legend of Luther Strode” #1 is the first chapter of the second volume of a proposed trilogy. Don’t worry — Jordan and Moore aren’t serving up the same tricks a second time. The first panel of “The Legend of Luther Strode” #1 lets readers know they’ve jumped ahead five years in time, but as it turns out that’s not entirely necessary. It doesn’t take much to figure out that some time has passed; Luther’s become a legend among the underworld, his fist able to punch through a hotel door and the bad guy’s head on the other side in a single strike, with his hunt for evil-doers never-ending. As a result, most of “The Legend of Luther Strode” #1 focuses instead on one of the organized crime groups trying to get eve