The Adventures of Lion Man

This dynamic and Afrofuturistic anthology reimagines one of the world’s first Black superheroes from the pages of All Negro Comics. Prefacing the volume with a reproduction of the original 1947 “Lion Man” comic by Orrin C. Evans and George Evans Jr., artist David Brame (Parable of the Talents) draws updated vignettes featuring the African superhero scripted by comics veterans Jennings (Kindred), Bill Campbell (The Day the Klan Came to Town), and Zimbabwean writer Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Drinking from Graveyard Wells). In Jennings’s “The Lion Outside,” Lion Man and his sidekick Bubba protect the portal to the dreamworld city of Leonopolis from Blut Sandro, his archnemesis. Campbell and Ndlovu spin up a fictionalized West African country plagued by a pandemic, dictatorship, and violent rebellion in “The Nation,” where Lion Man’s a secret agent helping a doctor to develop a cure. In “The Tower,” by Jennings, a scientist in the future enters “the dreamscape” via a “neural link” helmet, taking on the identity of Lion Man, to save children that Blut Sangro has imprisoned through self-hatred and self-doubt. The art playfully combines nods to classic newsprint dots with neon-inflected fight scenes to complement these fast-paced if occasionally rushed adventures. This satisfying entertainment lends fresh life to Black comics history. (Aug.)