Black Manta's second issue retains its breakneck pace as it takes time to flesh out the world and give readers a bit more foundation to stand upon while maintaining its visually distinct stylings. Books centered around villains can be a bit of a hard sale, and this series doesn't shy away from that while also presenting enough to make it not quite so hard. Read Full Review

This continues to be one of the strangest books in DC's lineup, but the strangeness is working in its favor this time. Read Full Review

Black Manta is cool as hell in this villain mini-series and I think he could easily lead an ongoing about his pirate adventures. The problem is that the rest of the comic " mostly the subplots and the art " doesn't live up to his standards. Read Full Review

Black Manta is showing potential, but a few choppy scenes are holding it back from reach high tide. Read Full Review

Black Manta #2 is a strange book and it's honestly a little boring, but it isn't necessarily bad. Read Full Review

This book is pretty boring so I'm just gonna use my review to make fun of Merlyn, because I like punching down.

Merlyn goes on this long rant, and it just proves he's totally in his right mind. He gets ass-blasted over a double page spread that shows a collage of African American history up to the Civil Rights movement, and some of the dialogue after that. First, he has to get a jab in that he was right about this basically being a Milestone book, because of this very page. Milestone comics weren't explicitly about racial and social justice. They were about providing black comic readers with heroes that looked like them, because it's important for people to see themselves represented in their heroes. For instance, Merlyn sees himself represented in Trump's own cognitive decline. So he's wrong on that. Then he complains about the comic showing that Malcolm X was murdered, with the implication in Merlyn's addled-mind being that the comic was explicitly saying that Malcolm X was a victim of racism and that's what got him killed. I'll clear it up for him. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were at the forefront of the 60s Civil Rights Movement, and they were both killed in the process of it. The comic shows the headlines of their deaths to signify the end of that movement. Merlyn then makes an irrelevant comment about how Malcolm X was killed by the Nation of Islam, and how they were very racist towards white people. I don't know what that has to do with what the comic is portraying, which is... the end of the Civil Rights Movement. But yeah, the Nation of Islam is what we refer to as "Bad News Bears" and Malcolm X made a lot of enemies by recognizing that and leaving the group, although there is a lot of suspicion that the state had a role in ensuring he was killed. That's conspiracy though. I don't even know why I'm on this tangent, this has nothing to do with the comic. Merlyn, once he starts, he cannot stop. His handlers wear earplugs. Oh and lastly, he gets mad about the obvious villain of the book referring to himself by the names of various black liberators, including Marcus Garvey. Garvey was a very controversial figure, and disliked by many black leaders. There were whole campaigns against him. But again, these names are being listed by the obvious villain of the book. It must have been too subtle the way he set off bombs and murdered people at the end. more

+ Like • Comments (1)

• Likes (1)

• Toonstrack

Toonstrack - Oct 28, 2021

Nailed it.

Sign in to comment

Yet another "lost tribe" plotline from DC, all too very similar with Thao-La and her group of Kryptonians. I understand DC is looking to ride that diversity train but could we get just a tiiiny bit of originality, is that too much to ask for? It gets points though for using one of the most ridiculous-but-in-a-good-way villains from DC, Gentleman Ghost.

I've been criticized by some idiots here for saying this book is basically a Milestone one. There's a page in this issue that I think showcases exactly that so I guess I can say I'm happy I'm being proved right. But what got my attention was that Malcolm X was presented as a victim of racism and his death a casualty of that. Now I have no doubts Malcolm WAS a victim of racism during his life but his death was decidedly NOT a casualty of that. He got killed by Nation of Islam which, you know, wasn't a very friendly organization towards whites. So we have here yet another attempt from a comic writer to rewrite history to suit his cause. It's a disturbing pattern in the industry lately. Also, while Marcus Garvey was indeed a key figure in black history, he was a self-described fascist, he even went so far to say he was the first fascist before Mussolini, which of course was crazy talk (in his defense, he did realize his mistake after Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and condemned fascism), and he even collaborated with KKK in an effort to push his black separatist views. If you want to change the future and make it a better one, start by presenting the past how it was, not how you would have liked it to be, Chuck Brown. more