Noteworthy Issues: Danger Street #5 (April, 2023)

Well, I have only a vague idea what’s going on in this Black Label series, but I am still enjoying it quite a bit.

Issue:  Danger Street #5, April 2023

Writer:  Tom King

Artist:  Jorge Fornes

The Plot:  There’s a dead Dingbat of Danger Street, and his grave has become a literal battlezone.

Commentary:  If I wanted a sure sign this was a Black Label title, beyond the fact the story opened with a child’s death, it probably came here.  This is a series that has gotten both weirder and darker as it goes along, and dispatching Orion to Earth to find answers over Atlas’s death leads to a fight over the aforementioned child’s grave between the grieving Starman and the belligerent Orion.  Admittedly, I didn’t know this Starman could even hold his own against Orion, but here we are.

And then there’s the Green Team turning on each other (sort of), Batman trying and failing to tell off the Creeper, and the character nicknamed Lady Cop just trying to find some answers while the surviving Dingbats are looking to kill Starman for his role in the death of their friend.  They don’t know Starman and Warlord are trying to revive their buddy, but I don’t know that it matters much at this point.

Perhaps the biggest sign that this is a Black Label book is just how the Green Team has been treated.  Cecil Sunbeam, juvenile movie director, comes across like the sleaziest studio boss one can imagine, and while it isn’t know yet who sicced Manhunter on the Green Team, it’s hard to say this version of the boy billionaires doesn’t deserve it.

And pretty much everything Warlord does in this issue suggests some sort of disconnect to whatever is really going on.  I thought Starman was hit hard by the death of the Dingbat, but it looks like Warlord took a psychological hit too, just in a very different way.

So, do I know where all this is going?  No, but I like the ride as I go there regardless.

Grade:  B+