Wes's Guide to Gargoyles: Gargoyles #1

Man it feels good to be using Wes's Guide to Gargoyles again. Friends, the time has finally come. Last year it was announced that, after years of dormancy, my favorite TV show, Gargoyles, was finally getting an official continuation, written by series creator, Greg Weisman, in comic book form. Naturally, no one was more pleased by this news than I was. Sadly, since I don’t live near a comic book store these days, it was a while before I was able to get my hands on the first four issues, so I’m admittedly late to the party here. Oh well, better late than never. One thing to keep in mind before getting into our recap, this is not the first time that Gargoyles has been revived in comic book form. Back in 2006, there was a Gargoyles revival published by the unfortunately titled comic book imprint Slave Labor Graphics, and this series is picking up where the SLG run left off and there have been quite a few significant developments since the end of Hunter’s Moon. I’d love to go through it all, but sadly, I have still not read the SLG comics. I’d love to read them, but sadly, they’re very difficult to track down these days and quite expensive. Hopefully, if the new comics sell well, which appears to be the case so far, Dynamite will reprint the SLG comics and maybe we’ll cover them when they do, but that’s for another time. I guess we’ll just have to explain the new developments as we encounter them. Today, our focus is on the first issue of the new Gargoyles comic. Ready, let’s begin.

Our comic opens on a typical night in New York City as narration from Detective Elisa Maza welcomes us to the party and reminds us that in New York City, things get a little crazy at night. Elisa and her partner Matt Bluestone are in the middle of a high-speed chase with, hey wait a minute! Those are the same three thugs who thought they could take on Goliath all the way back in Awakening part three. Seriously, how dumb are these guys? And do the writers know that it’s possible for other thugs to commit crimes in New York City? Anywho, Matt suggests calling for backup, but a distant roar indicates to Elisa that backup has already arrived. The Gargoyles have arrived to foil the criminals as a title card informs us that our official title is “Here In Manhattan Chapter 1: A Little Crazy” I dig it. In a moment that makes me laugh, one of the thugs refers to Angela as “Dude” and this pisses her off to no end, Angela violently reminding the thug and she is not a “Dude” in any sense of the word. Let that be a lesson to you, misgendering people is hurtful and if you do it, a pissed off Gargoyle will tear you a new asshole! As Goliath and the others carry off the thugs Lexington drives their getaway car to safety.

Cut to The Eyrie Building where Elisa’s narration brings the reader back up to speed on the Gargoyles’ backstory. Elisa and Goliath share a loving embrace as the narration continues to introduce the characters one by one. Now’s as good a time as any to discuss a few of those new developments. First and foremost, Broadway and Angela are now a romantic item. That one’s fairly common knowledge, but since I haven’t personally covered any of the episodes or comics in which that was a thing, I thought I should mention it anyway. The bigger development is Brooklyn who is now sporting light body armor and an eyepatch. Long story short, in the SLG comics, Brooklyn pulled a Bill & Ted and had an excellent adventure through time, coming back to the clan years older and not just with a new look, but also with a mate named Katana, who hails from feudal Japan, and their son Nashville, who prefers to go by Gnash. Lexington is also here and is apparently quite curious about what “Snogging” means. Since Lexington now has a boyfriend over in England, the British term for kissing is of particular interest to him. Something that seems apparent is that with everyone paired off romantically, the trio of Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway seem to have grown apart and aren’t as close as they used to be.

Over in Riker’s Island prison, we see career criminal scumbag Tony Dracon and slightly more competent career criminal scumbag Tomas Brod staring menacingly at one another from across their shared prison cell. According to Elisa’s narration, even though both Dracon and Brod are locked up, the gang war between their two factions is still going strong and to make matters worse, other criminal factions are getting in on the action. With Dracon and Brod behind bars, there’s a power vacuum in the city’s underworld and the battle for supremacy has taken many casualties, causing a great deal of trouble for the police. Back at the castle, we get another one of those new developments. Cold Stone, Goliath’s Zombie-Cyborg brother and Cold Fire, Goliath’s Robot Sister are now living with the clan again. Whether or not this means that their evil brother Cold Steel has been dealt with, I honestly have no idea, but they’re here, and that’s cool. I guess the two cybernetic Gargoyles attempted to intervene in a fire fight between the two criminal factions but were only successful after Cold Fire set the building on fire forcing both factions to retreat. Don’t worry, it appears to have been an abandoned warehouse so no innocent bystanders got caught up in the fire. Cold Stone isn’t exactly pleased with protecting humanity in secret and even questions why he should protect a species and hasn’t even fully learned to accept one another, let alone the Gargoyles themselves. Goliath says that protecting the Castle, the “castle” in this case being all of Manhattan, is part of the Gargoyle way of life, and while they will no longer hide from the humans, it is important to reveal themselves gradually and give the humans the time to adjust. And in the meantime, they will protect their city from the criminal element, referring to them as a “Superstitious Cowardly Lot.” In a moment that makes me laugh, Elisa calls out Goliath for quoting Batman. Bad Goliath, you can’t do that, this is a Disney Comic! The best part, Goliath acts dumb and pretends not to know who Batman is, likely not wanting to admit that he reads comic books. This gave the hilarious mental image of Goliath in the library reading a Batman comic shoved within classic literature like he’s a kid in 5th grade.

Back in Riker’s, Brod has apparently learned that both Tony’s Grandfather, Dominic Dracon, whom we’d previously met in the Silver Falcon episode, and his uncle, Dino Dracon, whom we’ve never met are soon, to be released from prison, but for some reason, Tony does not appear pleased by this news.

Meanwhile, we cut to the Labyrinth where Talon, Elisa’s mutant brother, has just paged Elisa with some big news. Also, apparently there is now a giant turtle and a giant cockroach living with Talon’s clan… your guess is as good as mine. Anywho, said big news is the fact that Maggie will soon give birth to Talon’s child. As Derek calls a mid-wife, hopefully one who won’t ask a lot of questions, one of the homeless women living in the sewer steps away to call someone and inform them that Maggie will soon give birth. And so our comic ends with the reveal that it’s none other than Goliath’s evil clone, Thailog, on the other end of the phone call, who has plans for Talon and Maggie’s baby. This was a very strong first outing for the new series. While being a fan of the series will help your understanding, Elisa’s narration helps bring those who might not be familiar with Gargoyles up to speed. This comic’s task is to introduce the new status quo for this series as well as set up a few major plot threads to hook the reader. The ongoing gang war and Thailog having designs on Maggie’s baby are both highly intriguing and I look forward to seeing how things develop. I would have liked to see Xanatos in this issue, but I’m sure we’ll get to him in due course. Overall, I thought this was an excellent way for Gargoyles to live again. Now it’s time to see where things go. Join me next time as we look at issue two.