Back in the ’60s, Space Ghost never got an origin. In 2005, DC Comics decided to remind H-B fans and comic readers of the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for.” Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Space Ghost #1 awaits!

SPACE GHOST #1

Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciler: Ariel Olivetti
Inker: Ariel Olivetti
Colorist: Ariel Olivetti
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Editor: Joey Cavalieri
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $2.95
Current Near-Mint Pricing: $5.00
Release Date: November 17, 2004

Previously in Space Ghost: A young policeman joins an elite space force that turns out to be horribly corrupt. When his moral standards don’t permit him to live a lie, our hero knows he must act.

But will the price be too high for even a ghost to pay?

“The universe tends towards entropy,” warns the very first caption, the first words we read in this story, and while that’s pretty dark, It’s time to fasten your seatbelts, folks. Our first glimpse of the man who will be Space Ghost is seen above, shouting to a crowd of attacking aliens about their inherent rights as he kicks out their teeth and creases their skulls. It’s very off-putting, made more so by his final decree, that his victims may either blink twice or grunt in agony to confirm that they know their rights. It’s all very Judge Dredd, and I’m very uncomfortable with what they’ve done to Bill, Joe, and Alex’s cosmic crusader. Having met Peacekeeper Thaddeus Bach, we return home with him to meet his very charming, VERY pregnant wife, Elua.
I’m not sure what accent Elua is meant to have, but I always hear her as Russian, sort of like Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. (Since she looks like Björk, it might be Icelandic.) It’s also here that my biggest problem with this story becomes clear: The coloring. Alex Toth’s Space Ghost design is high-contract, black-and-white with red and yellow accents. Olivetti’s fully painted colors here are somehow both garish and muddy. Elua’s pink peignoir has sickly yellow-green undertones, while even the white of the Peacekeeper uniform ends up with multiple highlighted colors Agent Bach returns to the equally over-colored halls of The Commandment, which is a really disturbing name for a police organization, where he is, in fact, given the promotion he wanted. But once he enters training to be an Eidolon Elite, Thaddeus undergoes a torment that would make Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket take a step back and reconsider.

Having shown too much humanity to make it into the black ops ranks of the Phantoms, Bach is instead shuttled upward once more to join The Wrath, the most elite agents of The Commandment. Thaddeus worries that he might not make it out alive, but Elua comforts him, reminding him that he’d never do something that would make her cry. Once in the field, Bach ends up participating in three consecutive missions that turn fatal for their quarry, whereupon he again shows his humanity at precisely the wrong time.
That night, Thaddeus is alarmed to find intruders in his home, gently waking his lady-love and apologizing before being clubbed unconscious. It’s a really weird scene, especially when it transitions to him being chained up and tortured by his commanding officer, who chides him for his inability to become a complete monster, even for short-term, mercenary reasons.

Then, they reveal that they’ve killed Elua… and that his unborn, also-murdered child was a boy. At that point, even the chains can’t hold him…

…but a death ray can.

At least, for a little bit. By next issue, he’ll get up from being left for dead, followed by the terrifying reveal that all his weapons were made by a genocidal monster and were used to wipe out said being’s entire race. It’s a grim and overly bloody origin for a character from a simpler time, leaving Space Ghost #1 in the company of the terrible Image Comics revival of Thundercats, a misguided attempt to avoid the embarrassing childish parts of a favorite property by adding equally embarrassing, unnecessarily gross adult parts, earning 1 out of 5 stars overall. It’s garish, it’s stiff, it’s awkward, it’s brutal and there’s nothing here that feels like Space Ghost at all.

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SPACE GHOST #1

20%

20%

Origins Are Dicey

Adding a grimdark origin filled with murdered women and children to the adventures of H-B's original white hat, utterly noble hero makes for a series that doesn't work on pretty much any level.

• Writing

  2
• Art

  2
• Coloring

  2
• User Ratings (0 Votes)
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