Chris Lemmerman's Reviews > Barbalien: Red Planet

Ooph, this one's painful. As it should be, given the subject matter, but even so.

Barbalien's story as part of and as a parallel to the AIDs Crisis is handled both delicately and honestly by writer Tate Brombal. (Lemire's name's on the cover, but Brombal did all the heavy lifting here so he's getting all the credit). In five issues, we see how Mark's internal struggles and the struggles that the queer community are facing are both massively similar and irreconcilably different. The fact that Mark can pass as a police officer complicates matters even further, and some parts of this book are difficult to read as a result.

It's almost a shame when the superheroic stuff rears its head, because Mark's Martian problems are nowhere near as interesting as his human ones, and while his victory over those issues works well to contrast with the plot denouement on the other side of things, I'd almost have preferred this to be an entire slice of life book rather than a superhero one. But if this is the way these stories get told, then I'll take it.

Barbalien has always been a pastiche of Martian Manhunter, and it's interesting to see how the fact that Mark portrays himself as a white man in his human identity (in both guises) contrasts to how Martian Manhunter is always a black guy. I wonder how this story would have changed, if it was J'onn rather than Mark getting involved.

The artwork from Gabriel Hernandez Walta is his usual understated, less-is-more type pencils that made his Vision and Doctor Strange runs so successful. The emotion he can invoke with only a few pencil strokes is astounding, it truly is, and it helps ground the human side of things as well as making the Martian plot even more alien than before.

Yet another in the wide array of Black Hammer spin-offs, Barbalien's solo outing stands head and shoulders above the others for daring to tell a story that's at times painful and joyous to read.