3 out of 5

Part of publisher AHOY’s mission statement is, basically, to make comics that are fun.  And this seems to be the purported m.o. for a lot of people nowadays, with even Marvel and D.C. occasionally boasting some kind of back-to-basics approach, but the apparent need to include attempted wicked smart social/gender/sex commentary, an it’s-all-connected megaplot, or excessive world-building references tends to distill the ‘fun’ into something that’s baiting headlines or gimicking for a buck.  In other words: most people are missing the mark on their claim.

But AHOY have scored, even while leaving their first premiering series, The Wrong Earth, to close out with a cliffhanger for a ‘second season.’  The setup from Tom Peyer isn’t brand new – a “good” version of a hero and a “gritty” version of a hero switch universes – but alongside artist Jamal Igle and colorist Juan Castro, they seat it in a slick, expressive, brightly colored (dual) world(s), and err on the side of implication and broad humor, keeping the appeal of the series open-ended, and the readability (and rereadability) high.  Regarding the former, Peyer doesn’t shy away from showing how the “dark” Dragonfly is capable of killing, and that his world’s cops are corrupt and his world’s villains sadists, but he doesn’t dive deep into that, allowing us to fill in all of the Dark Knight blanks we want to, which is perfect: we know the moves, and there are plenty of comics out there aiming for shock value by digging into that stuff.  Similarly, in the good world, there’s funny stuff like bank managers wearing banners proclaiming their rank and communicating with the wholesome Dragonflyman to tell him about a Riddler proxy’s latest scheme, but The Wrong Earth doesn’t go out of its way to lambaste this stuff; we also have plenty of books poking fun at feel-good pastiche.  Igle muscles up the grimsters and allows the bright and shiny folk to look a little rounder; Castro offers shadows in the night and pop colors in the day, but no one is overplaying their hand.  It’s just fun.

While I do think the story was lacking at least one or two sentences to nod toward the whole universe switch thing – it happens via a magic mirror, but no one pauses to exposit how / why this hasn’t happened before – and this first ‘season’ is very much just feeling out the tone, and not making too big a deal out of any single event that occurs, The Wrong Earth was one of those rare, guilt-less purchases, and I’m looking forward to season two.