One Year Later, the big change for Manhunter is that she’s gotten really good at being a super-hero. As happens with most people when we’re in our second year on a job, things are getting easier, more routine and more fun for our heroine Kate. Rounding up grade D villains like Punch and Jewelee has become so easy that she barely even breaks a sweat. Perhaps a lot of Kate’s experience came from her involvement in whatever happened in Metropolis, an event glimpsed in shadows but not explicitly shown at all. It’s an obviously nasty event that haunts her and invests her current life in some regret and learning. At the same time, Kate’s living through the experience seems to have made her stronger.
In the meantime, Kate’s personal life continues in a more ordinary way. Her ex-husband’s new wife is pregnant, triggering some odd jealousies in Kate. In the meantime, she’s gotten closer with Todd, the gay super-hero who’s better known as Obsidian. And her alliance with Mr. Bones has grown stronger, to the point where Kate is helping him in both her civilian and super-hero identities.
This is a nice, solid super-hero comic. It’s fun to see Kate’s growth. In fact, it’s a nice touch for OYL to be able to skip over so much of Kate’s awkward growth and deliver us a new and improved version of the same heroine we’ve read about for the previous 19 issues. A lot of change and movement was sped up by the shift to “one year later,” and that adds some fresh air to this series.
Pina and Blanco’s art continues to be a nice fit for this series, neither too dark nor too light for these characters.
Some books have radical changes for their characters One Year Later, while others move the status quo forward one year. This book takes the latter approach and does an exemplary job in doing so. Like everything else about this book, that approach can be summed up in one word: solid.