Review by Ian Keogh

Tangent Comics presents alternative versions of familiar names, in effect re-imagining the entire conceptual process. Green Lantern, for instance, isn’t a slick-suited crusader with an emerald power ring, but a hooded and cloaked woman with a lantern opening doorways into other universes. There’s potential in the idea, but as the first two volumes displayed, there’s a big step from potential to inspiration.

Volume 3 introduces Mark Millar and Butch Guice’s reinterpretation of the Superman. Harvey Dent’s an undistinguished cop until the day he takes what should have been a death dive. He not only survives, but is smarter and he just keeps evolving. It’s interesting, but is diverted into the bigger picture of the Tangent universe and the emotional content doesn’t hit as it should.

Peter David’s Wonder Woman astounds by being a verbose warrior with a talent for bombast, but David is also verbose and packing in SF ideas of alternate societies leaves Angel Unzueta with plenty of opportunity for pin-ups, but story is there little.

John Ostrander and Jan Duursema’s version of the Doom Patrol has potential with a group of heroes travelling from the future to undo their past, but it also highlights a flaw throughout. Instead of merely being origin stories of new heroes, the brief is to build the overall world further by tying into the activities of the covert Nightwing organisation. Josef Stalin as a vampire is a neat idea, though.

With their version of the Joker being a precursor to the well-intentioned Harley Quinn, Karl Kesel and Matt Haley surprised with a highlight in Volume 2, and Kesel returns with Tom Simmons co-writing and Joe Phillips now on art. It’s not as pleasing, again more concerned with a bigger plot than repeating what worked before. There is, though, a clever revelation, one that would only ever work in comics.

Flash and Green Lantern also return. Todd DeZago and Paul Pelletier’s light-hearted dose of fun is another hit, but while there’s a good idea behind Green Lantern being given three separate origins, they rely too much on the surprise of the names involved in those origins. J.H. Williams III, Mike Mayhew and Ryan Sook provide more attractive art than Georges Jeanty, while James Robinson writes the portentous framing sequence, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning write two alternatives and Ostrander the third and best.

What’s sold as a new version of Power Girl concerns the mission to acquire her rather than any appearance of consequence from Dan Jurgens and Dusty Abell. It’s disappointing, and Jurgens setting up the finale, which he also writes, with Darryl Banks on art. It’s a confusing mess. Small pieces have been planted in the earlier stories, but the leap to what’s drawn together needed greater cohesion and this finale reads as if portions are missing. Against the odds, though, the ending sets up something that could bear following up.

Tangent Comics Volume 3 very slightly improves on Volume 1 and Volume 2, but considering all the planning that must have gone into the new characters, missed opportunities are still the order of the day. A decade later the world was revisited in two volumes of Tangent: Superman’s Reign.