4 out of 5

Woot, more Nate Cosby.  This is a little bold to sell as a $5 special, seeing as how some pages at the end are dedicated to an unrelated preview.

Green Hornet, Rocketeer, the Shadow – I’m happy for the pulp hero resurrection, but I’ve had trouble getting into them for some reason, even when written by scribes I’m down with, such as Mark Waid.  This might be because heroes of eras gone by were generally just sketches of ideas or concepts, and thus modernizations can either attempt to add to the history or do a cheeky thing, and either way it then seems like you’re sort of getting short-changed – the former means it’s no longer the original idea, and the latter can’t really break free of inherent limitations.  From the first couple pages of this ish, though, I felt that Cosby had found a good way ‘in’ to the character for me… by not really featuring him as a character at all.  Hornet and Kato are the co-stars to a young paper seller who dreams herself into the Green Hornet world as ‘the Green Gun Girl.’  Evan Shaner does a bang up job illustrating the lil’ ladies’ imaginings in ‘old comics style’ – interestingly very similar to Chris Samnee’s current Daredevil work, with expressive characters and well framed panels with seemingly simple linework keeping it all very fluid and graceful – and this gives Cosby a chance to work some grins in by straddling the cheeky line, and then we’re back to the more dreary, shadowed present day illustrated by Edu Menna, where the girl – Ruby – returns home to fork over her daily earnings to her alcoholic pop.  But as I saw with ‘Cow Boy,’ there are little moments that sell the characterizations perfectly and give the story interesting emotional heft – Ruby withholding some coins, secreted in her boots, emptied over her bed as she continues to daydream, or the way her father instantly switches from aggressive to protector when, of course, some Hornet action bumbles into Ruby’s paper route and the girl finds herself both assisting GH and then on the run from the villains.

Menna’s art is a little stiff, but he finds a perfect face for Ruby, and Marcelo Pinto’s color shifts between the old style and present day really help to knit it all together.  The story ends a little simply, as a lot of one shot tales must, with Ruby getting a sort of funny ‘reward’ for her assistance that, sure, ties into the narrative and title but feels rather pointless overall.

The price is steep, but this would’ve been a cool way to get introduced to the revamp, or even better, a good kick-off to a series with tales in a similar vein – one shots of average joe’s interactions with the Hornet.