Review by Ian Keogh

The best superhero graphic novels surprise from the start, and that’s the case for Strange Visitor. The title could refer to Robin in the opening chapter, but doesn’t. After The Devil Nezha he’s stuck in the past, and while waiting for Batman and Superman to rescue him, he reverts to his honed talents and joins the circus as an acrobat, simultaneously investigating two murders. It’s effectively drawn by Travis Moore (sample art left) who highlights the joy of performance while designing a variety of characters and a formidable lion.

Dan Mora’s back for the remainder of the book, in which the strange visitor is David Sikela, a teenage boy arriving from an alternate universe and manifesting super powers. Sound familiar? That’s what Mark Waid intends. The subsequent Boy Thunder learns to be a superhero under Batman and Superman’s supervision, but Waid lets readers know he carries disturbing secrets.

As before, Strange Visitor takes place in the days of the Justice League’s first incarnation, when Dick Grayson was a teenage Robin and when Batman could still crack a smile. While Batman and Superman are the title characters, they don’t operate in isolation, and the first generation of the Teen Titans take in Boy Thunder and are prominently seen. In other respects Waid moves beyond the 1960s. The Joker is certainly a later model, and the Key is reconfigured from the goofy villain with the big keyhole helmet. Here Waid is true to the 1960s by applying a different interpretation of what can be unlocked, although shoehorning that in is rather unwieldy and unnecessary even if it does enable colourist Tamra Bonvillain to take a psychedelic turn.

While Waid’s general path can be predicted, he reaches it via unexpected ways, and that’s where the joy is. Well, that and the great art. Strange Visitor has shocking moments, but is generally fun, and that’s all too often absent from superhero comics these days. Elemental is next.