Review by Win Wiacek

The Tangent Universe is a specific re-imagining of DC concepts as tribute to Editor Julius Schwartz, whose invention of the practice rebooted superheroes in 1956. Writer/artist Dan Jurgens was instigator and head imaginer for the nine one-shot titles that launched in 1997. The experiment was repeated in 1998 with another set of one-shots.

So what’s the difference?

In 1962 Jurgens shows how American superhuman the Atom fails to prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis, which results in an exchange of nukes. Although he limits the destruction, the world is forever changed. Everything from Cuba to Florida is vaporised. Atlanta is destroyed, but eventually rebuilt as New Atlantis. In the oceans the radiation mutates marine life, creating intelligent new species. As a political result the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 is met with American military intervention. The Soviet Union is ideologically strengthened and still controls half the world. It is a world of advanced science, powerful nagic, and fewer freedoms than ours, so a much darker place than we’re used to.

So how are this world’s Metal Men, Green Lantern, Flash and Sea Devils reimagined?

‘Truth’ by Jurgens and Paul Ryan, focuses on the debut of the squeaky clean grandson of the original nuclear superhero the Atom, but swiftly reveals the dark sordid truth of the Cuban Event. This look at the nasty underbelly of the world sets the thematic scene for all the titles, which have been created for a much more cynical and pessimistic audience than those of the 1950s.

The Metal Men is written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Mike McKone. ‘Secrets & Lies’ reveals the story of a US Special Ops unit whose exploits during the 1968 War saved the Free World, and how those men have continued to affect it since. Green Lantern, ‘From Beyond the Unknown’ sees a mysterious woman whose magic lantern can revive the dead to conclude unfinished business in a seemingly unconnected set of tales by James Robinson and J. H. Williams III. The Flash tells the bright and breezy story of oh-so-modern Lia Nelson, teen actress/model who just happens to be made of light. ‘Premiere’ provides a welcome change of pace and tone amidst the dire intrigue from Todd Dezago and Gary Frank.

The final adventure is by Kurt Busiek and Vince Giarrano, explaining how Sea Devils is the name given to mutated sea-creatures born in the wake of the Cuban Nuclear Exchange. ‘Devils and the Deep’ is a tale of teenage alienation as the new generation of Sea Devils seek their place both in the human and sub-sea worlds, led by the heroic, moody and charismatic Redfin, son of the awesome Ocean Master, who rules the irradiated depths.

These are tales for a bleak and disillusioned audience, and there is a crying need for an over-reaching narrative arc, but they are still readable. Their inclusion as part of the 52 Multiverse (their world is Earth #9 if you’re keeping tabs) underscores their relevance to the official DC universe, and more follow in Volume 2.