Enginehead

(DC, 2004)
™ and © 2004 DC Comics, Inc.

It’s an interesting enough premise: A half-dozen of DC’s cyborg characters pool their resources in some mysterious merger. So far, however, the story has gone nowhere.

Who is on board? The principal character this issue is Jackhammer from The Toolbox. Everybody knows The Toolbox, right? Then there’s Automan. Show of hands: Who remembers Automan? One, two—OK, two.

Probably the biggest name (aside from Tin of The Metal Men, who bails in less than a page) is Professor Hamilton from the pages of Superman. This is hardly an all-star line-up. Which is OK, really. DC’s own Power Company did a good job resurrecting characters like Bork. But the job is to make the reader care; in this attempt, the only character readers get to know is Jackhammer—and they only get to know him enough to dislike him. I’m not a huge fan of faces as rendered by McKeever but I have to admit that he draws nice machinery. That’s going to be important in this title. The action really begins on the last page. The cliffhanger is just enough motivation to give the next issue a try—but barely.

— Jack Abramowitz

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