Time’s up for Christopher Chance, as The Human Target is about to take his last bullet. Your Major Spoilers review of Human Target #12 from DC Comics awaits!

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THE HUMAN TARGET #12

Writer: Tom King
Artist: Greg Smallwood
Colorist: Greg Smallwood
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: February 28, 2023

Previously in The Human Target: Christopher Chance has spent the last 12 days trying to solve his own murder, with the list of suspects comprising the Justice League International. Did a hero really attempt to kill Lex Luthor? Could the Human Target have miscalculated?

Is it too late to save his life?!

THE HUMAN TARGET IS DEAD

After being poisoned while posing as Lex Luthor, Christopher Chance found that he had only twelve days left to live. The investigation of his murder led him to the Justice League International and an affair with Ice, filling The Human Target’s last days with love and betrayal. After unraveling the mystery, he spent his final hours on the beach with her, only to have Ice fly into a rage, put his gun in his hand, and place it to her temple. As this issue opens, Chance is dead, lying on the hotel bed where he spent his last two weeks, while Ice tries to deal with the fallout of her short relationship. Fire is amazed that they got away with it, while Guy Gardner just wants to protect “his girl” from any fallout. When The Martian Manhunter tries to start an investigation, Ice does the one thing that nobody ever suspected she was capable of.

She stops being nice.

“BECAUSE I’M THE SWEET ONE…”

Last issue’s emotional breakdowns and conflict between Tora and Christopher made for some compelling reading, especially when Ice flipped out, angry that Chance wouldn’t report her actions to the Justice League. The breakdown about being “the nice one” was filled with profanity, frustration, and a profound sense of lost identity, ending with her nearly begging him to kill her as penance. This issue negates all that and sends Ice down a path that just plain annoys me. Rather than come clean to her teammates, she manipulates Guy Gardner, blackmails J’onn J’onzz, and ends the story with a truly reprehensible act of pettiness. No matter how wonderful Greg Smallwood’s art is (and it’s just beautiful, as usual), the emptiness and nihilism of this ending are infuriating to read. Even worse, it hollows out some of the most successful moments of the series, turning the deconstruction of “tough hero” and “beautiful femme fatale” into just another King story about how everything sucks, and everyone is going to die alone in a sleazy motel.

BOTTOM LINE: I REALLY DISLIKE THIS ENDING

If you’ve been reading the series since the beginning, The Human Target #12 will be worth the time, if only to get closure on the sad tale of Christopher Chance’s last days, and Smallwood’s art will make it one of the most attractive books you’ll read all week, to the tune of 4 out of 5 stars overall. It’s just a shame to see an enjoyable story end in such a depressing and discordant way, a terrible finale for an intriguing limited series.

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