Green Hornet: Year One, #1
Writer/Art Director: Matt Wagner
Artist: Aaron Campbell
Colorist: Francesco Francavilla
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Four different covers available for this first issue, and no fewer than four ads for other Green Hornet titles inside the book itself. Dynamite’s definitely latched onto a presumed cash cow here and are intent on milking it for all it’s worth. Wagner, on the other hand, has always had a strong affinity for pulp heroes, and his genre reflexes are sharp as ever. There’s a lot of “What th’ hell is DIS crap?!” from Chicago mob mooks and long, inscrutable lectures from Kato’s samurai father.
The book is divided into two A-plots, involving Kato and Britt respectively, and one B-plot where they team up to take on some gangsters. Kato and Britt’s separate plot arcs deal in a lot of the same emotional territory from different cultural angles, playing up their similarities. Where Britt is impatient with his father’s insistence on the power of journalism to dismantle the Chicago Mob, Kato disagrees with his father’s opposition to the rule of Emperor Hirohito. We don’t get to see, yet, how any of that adolescent rebellion plays out for them; we see them fighting together as adults, but the rest of that road is left for the next three issues.