Free Comic Friday: Stranger Things/Black Hammer

Free Comic Book Day 2019: Stranger Things
“The Game Master”
Script: Jody Houser
Art: Ibrahim Moustafa
Color: Triona Farrell
Lettering: Nate Piekos of Blambot

“Horrors to Come”
Script: Jeff Lemire & Ray Fawkes
Art & Lettering: Dave Rubin

Cover Art: Chun Lo
Editors: Spencer Cushing, Daniel Chabon, Freddye Miller
Assistant Editors: Konner Knudsen, Brett Israel, Judy Khuu
Designer: Patrick Satterfield
Digital Art Technicians: Allyson Haller, Josie Christensen
Published by: Dark Horse
Released: May 4, 2019

You guys heard of this show “Stranger Things?”

At my oldest daughter's insistence, we binged all the newly dropped episodes the first night, in an effort to avoid spoilers. But since it's Friday,* and I probably need to rewatch some to get context I lost as it got later, this feels like a good time to revisit one of Dark Horse's Free Comic Book Day issues featuring the property.

One of the problems with tie-ins, though, is even with creative people involved, you kind of feel like there's a limit on how much weight a story outside the main venue can really have. Comic stories** probably aren't going to make major, mythology-shaking revelations, but they can add depth, detail or just tell a good story.

They could also be erased by what happens in the main entity. For example, one of the Stranger Things comics I have read features season one from Will Byers' perspective while he's trapped in the Upside Down. It seemed like about as interesting and dramatic a concept as you could hope for, expanding upon something of definite interest to fans of the show without really changing anything. And yet, the teaser I saw of season five suggests it will be adding to those details. I don't know if it will directly contradict anything, but what I did see seems like it would have been important to include in the comic – had they known at the time it was even part of the story.

Despite the dramatic cover of an upside down Eleven telekinetically tearing apart a demogorgon – at least I think that's what's happening – El and the creature only appear in flashback in this tale, set immediately after or between the scenes of the season one finale. And while “Stranger Things” has always been about the characters as much as the spectacle, this one provides some depth that maybe we didn't need but is a logical addition to what we've seen on screen.

Nancy Wheeler is hanging out with Steve Harrington, who I initially assumed was the prototypical egomanianc bad boyfriend, sure to be replaced with Jonathan Byers by season one's end. But that's not what happened. Steve showed unexpected character and, while not a full-on hero at that point, demonstrated there was more to him than cliches. By the end of season two, he was my favorite character.

Here, he's still emerging from his shallowness, trying to move on from the weirdness while Nancy worries about her brother, Mike, pining away for Eleven, who might be eating Eggos in Hopper's cabin at this point. Steve tries to help by suggesting Nancy ask Mike how Will is doing, so as not to seem like she's prying into her little brother's feelings.

The conversation turns to their shared trauma and, eventually, Dungeons and Dragons. Nancy reminds Mike of how much the gaming sessions mean to him, Will, Lucas and Dustin and recalls how she used to help him make costumes. Steve tries to relate. Soon, Mike is getting out his gaming stuff for the first time since Will disappeared and Steve is... asking Nancy if she still has the elf costume she made for one of the boys' games. Look, he's a work in progress. He's not a heroic babysitter yet, but he's getting there.

It's a nice story that seems to give us more interaction between brother and sister than we get in the show. Of course, interactions are bound to be different when their lives aren't being threatened by monsters, the government, etc. It's also interesting to think about how comics aren't restrained by budgets but this is the medium in which smaller, human interactions take precedent over mind-bending adventures and special effects. But I don't really want the comics to exceed the scale of the show in this case.

The next entry is from Jeff Lemire's “Black Hammer” series, the main story of which I read several years ago. I remember it was really good... and that's about it. In my mind, “Black Hammer” is like “Astro City” in the way it uses archetypal heroes you can recognize as parallels from Marvel, DC, etc. but puts the creators' unique spin on them.

This one features Madame Dragonfly in the Cabin of Horrors, which gives me DC House of Mystery and House of Secrets vibes, as I presume it's supposed to. We see pilots operating as the Black Hammer Squadron in World War II taking on Nazi werewolves before Jack Sabbath, a Deadman-looking fellow, surprises Dragonfly by exiting one of the cabin's many doors.

Jack is seeking her help because he's under the impression he's been dead for a long time, but that's challenged by a comic book he found showing him on the cover with a team called the Incredible Unteens. Dragonfly assures Jack she doesn't know anything about this story and what it could mean about his life before death, but she casts a spell to help him out. It conjures a vision of him with the lady I think is the new Black Hammer but... I really don't remember the details.

Of the two, this story is the more effective for me, just because I know the comics it's promoting will have the whole story. Even if Black Hammer is eventually adapted for other media, I presume the comics will still be the foundation of the storytelling.

I'm not against “Stranger Things” comics at all. It just feels like they're understandably limited in their potential scope. A crazy-yet-perfectly-fitting crossover like the one from a couple years ago with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might be the pinnacle, at least with the characters from the show.

I'll probably be a little disappointed when that last episode drops on New Year's Eve, just because that will be the end. But if the Duffer Brothers and company deliver like they have been, I probably won't need any additional stories in any medium to be satisfied.

* - As in #FreeComicFriday.

** - Or the novels; I haven't read them, but I assume it's a similar situation.