Spoilers
Issue 15 of Manhunter takes a step back to look at the story behind Kate Spenser’s costume. In The Suit with art by Stephen Sadowski and Andrew Pepoy we learn that her suit was a uniform to one of the Darkstars, an intergalactic peace keeping force. One of the Darkstars gets blasted and lands on Earth. After several months a bum finds the outfit and takes it. He has a scuffle with a few bored troublemakers and after using the suits increased strength to pound them ditches the suit in the gutter for the police to pick up. The Gauntlets with Sean Philips on art chores shows that the Gauntlets originated in Gotham and were once used by Azreal when he replaced by Batman. Retrieved by an aspiring crook but when a job goes awry the cops confiscate the dangerous gloves. The Staff featuring art from Rags Morales and Shawn Martinbrough shows that a number of DEO operatives, including a Manhunter, falling victim to one of the carious Eclipsos. This portion also continues writer Marc Andreyko’s plot points from the previous arc, Manhunted surrounding a government conspiracy dealing with the Manhunters.
This is a very good jumping on point for new readers. While it doesn’t introduce the cast or deal too much with the main character it gives a bit of the background on the book. It’s one part of Kate’s untold origin. The next should be the following story arc. On a whole it was pretty entertaining even if nothing really gripped me like previous issues. My favorite segment was about the gauntlets. I thought the little bit with the criminal in that was well done. The last segment caught my attention for the murders of several DC characters. Found out that scene was taken from an Eclipso mini series some years back but at first I thought DC gave Andreyko leeway to kill a bunch of D-string characters.
Javier Pina does the framing sequences but those particular scenes remind me of how much I want Jesus Saiz back on the book. Seeing Pina redo those first issue scenes just doesn’t compare. Sadowski’s page were not as strong as the inked pages I saw online. The bland colors took away a lot. I was mad that rags Morales only did two pages. Seriously, when’s Rags Morales going to do more than a handful of pages? Maybe when OYL hits. The best looking pages I thought were Sean Philips with the weakest been Shawn Martinbrough. Martinbrough’s pseudo-Jock style works as a fill-in onThe Losers but not here. Also have to say, that is one gorgeous Jesus Saiz cover.
Overall a reliable read but not one of the better issues in the series. However for all of you who’ve been unsure to jump on or not I say this is the right opportunity. This and the upcoming Who’s Your Daddy? story are a perfect time to check out this great book.
