Mitch Shelley is an interesting guy. He can sense metal wherever he goes: metal plates in the joints of war veterans, tongue piercings. And he remembers the metal of the surgical tools used to attempt to save his life when he died. "Everything tastes of metal," he says.But the next thing we know, Mitch isn't dead. He's "borrowing" an ATM card and boarding a plane. While on the plane, he meets an attractive woman who, on a dime, transforms into a winged creature who proclaims that Mitch's "soul is overdue." The ensuing chaos ends in a plane crash, killing everyone, including Mitch...
...who "un-dies" a half hour later. And so begins "Resurrection Man," one of the new titles in the DC Comics New 52 reboot.
I had never heard of Resurrection Man before and so did a little online research about him. The character, it turns out, previously existed but is nonetheless rather new to the DC Universe. He was created in 1997 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Jackson Guice and had a two-year run in print. Abnett and Lanning remain in charge of this, um, newly-resurrected version of the comic, this time along with Fernando Dagnino.
By virtue of his hesitant participation in a botched science experiment (perhaps the reason why his last name is Shelley, a nod to "Frankenstein"), Mitch experiences an odd sort of immortality; he loses much of his memory of what happened prior to each death, and is resurrected from the dead within minutes of dying. He feels all of the pain experienced with each death and is not immune to it. Even more interesting, each resurrection brings with it a new superpower unique to and informed by the situation that last killed him.
In this reboot, Mitch is being tracked down by a group of individuals who appear to share the mark of a red tear in the corner of each one's right eye. Unaware of his being pursued, Mitch visits the nursing home where his dad lived to find that he's died. Suffering from memory loss, Mitch asks the residents for details about his father. Two women who appear to have a history with Mitch show up to "retrieve" him, guns blazing. They "kill" Mitch and upon revival, he is able to take the form of water and put up a fight. He is killed again regardless and momentarily held captive in a sort of purgatory. Once he returns, he is killed by the women again but then they are confronted by someone calling himself "The Transhuman," the same name that a man in the nursing home had earlier told Mitch was his super-villain name prior to his time there, a piece of information that Mitch would be unable to remember.
The women, identified in issue #4 as Carmen and Bonnie, engage in a gunfight with the Transhuman, but they are all overpowered by the return of the winged woman from the plane, Suriel, who claims to be a "special angel from Heaven" sent to nab Mitch. A confrontation follows that leaves Mitch so bloodied that Suriel is not even sure that he will be able to resurrect again, at least not on Earth. Of course he does, and the fact that he is alive despite the condition of his body, coupled with his confusion over who and where he is, leads medical personnel to admit him to Arkham Asylum, where he begs the guards and workers to kill him so that he can prove that the stories they find to be delusional are, in fact, true. They name him "Deathwish."
Mitch escapes from Arkham and heads for Metropolis, allowing this title to cross over with two of the most famous cities in the DC Universe. While being tracked down in Metropolis, in issue #7, a man named Mr. Untouchable (who is able to surround himself with a red glowing force field) causes the building to set on fire thanks to the presence of a meth lab in it that was being uncovered at that moment by the authorities. In probably the coolest moment for Resurrection Man up to that point, he starts to push aside his confusion and embrace his urges to save innocent people from the building and fight crime, doing most of this as a flame of blue fire. In this segment, he looks awesome.
In issue #8, Mitch is at the Metropolis Library researching clues about his past when he literally runs into a woman named Kim Rebecki who's been hired to track him down. Kim has psychic powers and knows that there's something unique about Mitch. But before they can get into it, a man called The Butcher - who hired her - arrives. "He steals lives to power his magic," Mitch is told. Naturally, he wants Mitch so that he can be eternally and powerfully refueled. After ridding of The Butcher, Kim tells Mitch that he was once the director of a military applications developer called The Lab. But once again, Mitch fails to gain more information before the two are interrupted, this time by the Suicide Squad.
The Suicide Squad plans to disassemble Mitch's again-dead body and transport the pieces separately in the hopes that it will prevent him from reviving, but Carmen and Bonnie show up to stop them. But Mitch resurrects as "living metal" and escapes. Before he finally gets away, though, his hand is cut off and sent to a lab to be studied. Nonetheless, a new hand grows in its place and Mitch can tell that there's something different about it.
In issue #10, Kim and Mitch make discoveries that could link the Transhuman's lab to Mitch's past. But dueling forces led by Suriel and the sarcastically sinister Outcast arrive to claim him, a virtual duel of heaven and hell on Earth for Mitch and his soul. Mitch makes a deal to buy him some time; he'd like one week to find out the truth about who he is and says he will then surrender to one of them. This sets up a nice cliff-hanger for the end of the first ten issues. But since I've also purchased issues #11 and #12, I'll include them in this review.
The artwork in "Resurrection Man" begins to get more clear (and, more awesome) around issue #9, as Jesus Saiz takes over for Dagnino, and gets even better when Javier Pina joins Saiz with issue #11. Having noticed that Saiz only draws three issues and then, with #12, Pina takes over, I was a little worried about the consistency of the book. Indeed there is a difference, but I would say that they are improvements.
Issue #12 opens with Resurrection Man flying over Gotham City. He doesn't know how he got back there or how he's able to fly. He only assumes bits and pieces about the lab that might hold the secrets of his past and how he came to be the way he is. But before he gets too far, Batman apprehends him as an escapee from Arkham, and Mitch is soon in the custody of the entire Justice League. This unexpected and thrilling crossover with the main characters from the DC Universe reach an even higher climax with the arrival of Darkseid. But even better than all of that is the end of this issue, which finds Mitch being picked up by a giant robot being operated by a man inside, who reveals himself to be...Mitchell Shelley? Huh? The last page says "Next: Issue #0...where everything is revealed!"
I have really been enjoying "Resurrection Man." I think it's one of the most interesting and engaging titles in the New 52, and it's been fun to follow a new character in a sturdy new title with a great storyline and a mysterious past to reveal. Unfortunately, only as I was researching a bit to write this review of the title did I learn that "Resurrection Man" is among four titles to be cancelled in the second wave of New 52 cancellations. I was lucky the first go-round, and I had not been reading any of the titles cancelled. This time, however, I'm reading half of them, this book and "Justice League International." This is the one that I'm really sad to see go! To say that I'm disappointed is an understatement.
So next month's issue is set to be a #0 origin story issue, which if nothing else might clarify the character of Mitch Shelley in the DC Universe and pave the way for him to show up in other titles sporadically. Still, it's a shame that readers didn't latch on to his own book, a standout favorite for me in the new 52. Here's hoping that at some point, Mitch will be capable of yet one more resurrection.
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