TRANS-SCRIBE: Beast World: Waller Rising #1

Tie-in's can be a unusual bag. Whenever a big story has tie-in books you have to ask yourself which ones you want to check out, hoping that you get the ones that are key to the event. On occasion, tie-in's will interrupt a regular run, occasionally in ways that only feel tangentially connected, and other times a tie-in seems to come out of nowhere and does entirely its own thing. Beast Word: Waller Rising falls into that latter category, and with a few tiny changes could take place with no connection to Beast World at all. Because of that, this doesn't feel like it's really needed for the event, but instead does its own thing that's really interesting.

The story takes place a very short time after Titans: Beast World #1, as Garro's spores are falling across the world and leaving chaos in their wake. It's during this chaos that Doctor Hate has managed to break free of whatever control Amanda Waller has over him, having gone rogue. This is something that wasn't set up in that issue, so feels a little out of nowhere here. But, this is the least strange part of the book.

Hate has managed to find a way to access the Kingdom, a pocket dimension that connects to the different life forces of the planet, such as the Red and the Green, and he's trying to corrupt and destroy it as a form of sacrifice to the Lord of Chaos. Now, this is where the plot got a little bit confusing to me. It might be because this feels like a four issue mini-series crammed down into a double sized issue, and it might be because I'm in the middle of a fibro flare and have a lot of brain fog going on; but there are parts of Hate's plan that just didn't make sense to me.

Parts like, why does he keep kidnapping powerful heroes and takes them to the Kingdom? I'm sure there's a line somewhere in the book that explains it, but I think I missed it and just had to go along with the ride without really fully understanding it.

Despite not knowing why the villain was doing it, several heroes find themselves inside the Kingdom, such as Val Zod's Superman, Nubia, Freedom Beast, and Doctor Mist, whilst Batwing, Vixen, and Black Manta work from the outside on a way of getting in. Mixed up in all of this is Deadeye, Waller's psychic nephew who first appeared in Lazarus Planet: Next Evolution. This is his second appearance, and we finally get some information on who he is. Despite being related to Waller, he seems to dislike her, hates her methods, and only agrees to help out to save people, rather than through family obligations or patriotism. He seems to be an interesting character, and I hope we get more from him other than appearing in single issue tie ins to events once every six months.

The various heroes and villains manage to come together and defeat Doctor Hate, delivering him back into Waller's control. The issue ends with Batwing considering forming a new team that includes the heroes that they fought with here, as well as some others. It seems like fairly standard fare for the formation of a new team. However, the thing that will immediately make this group, and the proposed other members, stand out is that they're all Black.

I've already seen people online complaining about this. Complaining both about why all of the characters that Hate took were Black, and why the proposed team at the end are all Black, and it seems fairly ridiculous. If the team were all white no one would be demanding an explanation for why only white people were taken, or why an all-white team would exist. Most super hero teams that we have all began as all white, Justice League, Teen Titans, The Avengers, X-Men, and more, so this is nothing new. But, then it is kind of new in the sense that DC hasn't had an all Black team before, and the idea is a fantastic one.

DC has a great pool of Black characters that it can draw from to create a new team if it wanted, and a lot of them are really good characters haven't really been given much of a spotlight before. I hope that this proposed team does go ahead, and I'm excited to see what characters end up on the roster.

I mentioned how I found some of the story hard to follow, again perhaps due to my brain not working right today, but I also found that the art in some cases added to this. Keron Grant provides the art on the book, and whilst it's really nice art to look at their style isn't the most traditional, and sometimes felt almost psychedelic. There are pages where the panels have other images bleeding through them, almost like a double exposure, whilst others would use harsh lighting and glare on the characters. These are not new techniques, but I found the combination of these more unusual styles with a story that I was already struggling to keep up with just led to an reading experience that felt dense and heavy to be even more so.

Overall, this is a really solid stand-alone issue, one that barely ties into the main event, and promises some interesting things to come in the DC Universe. If this all Black hero team does emerge then this is an interesting first chapter of what could be a fantastic new idea. But, if that team doesn't come along then this will feel like both an empty promise, and something of a wasted opportunity. Hopefully DC will make the right choice.