There is a reason I never saw Black Dynamite. There is a reason I never watched the animated series. Put simply, I find the blaxploitation “tribute” to be tedious. I am a huge fan of the source material. Shaft, Truck Turner, Coffy, Black Belt Jones, Superfly, Dolemite, I own nearly all of them. The return to the blaxploitation well has become entirely too easy. The sendups have become so over the top that they’ve lost what made the original works so damn cool.
Cue Black Dynamite #1, the first issue in IDW’s new ongoing series surrounding the character. The original Black Dynamite film, starring the man who once embodied Spawn, Michael Jai White, was yet another “tribute” to the long-dead genre. From those ashes rose the Adult Swim animated series Black Dynamite, which took the original characters and put them into wackier situations. Brian Ash, who penned work for Adult Swim’s Boondocks as well as that Black Dynamite series and the graphic novel Black Dynamite: Slave Island, is the driving force behind the new ongoing.
The year is 1976, and Black Dynamite has gone from hero to wandering stranger. A number of years earlier, during an attack on a local Block Party, Black Dynamite mixed it up with Too Swole. Even though he stood triumphant, Black Dynamite was soon schooled on the changing political climate by none other than Roots author Alex Haley. Haley runs down how Black Dynamite’s fisticuffs ways are no longer relevant, and even lead to bigger, badder, bad guys. Dejected, wounded and confused, Black Dynamite vanishes into the sunset. As issue #1 comes to a close, the present day Dynamite is faced with a situation involving a fake Cuban town, G-Men and a bunch of soldiers.
Ash does everything you would expect from a blaxploitation send up. At one point, while Dynamite is with a woman, a member of his crew runs in and says “Black Dynamite come quick,” to which Dynamite retorts “Black Dynamite never comes quick.” Get it! He’s talking about sex! Ash sprinkles in lots of one-liners and blaxploitation dialogue gems. Problem is, it doesn’t resonate. Why would you read this when you can see the original films, or watch I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, or any of the number of other “sendups” of the genre? Black Dynamite #1 is dull, predictable and uneven.
Ron Wimberly’s pencils don’t really help matters. Granted, a comic like this is supposed to be over the top, but Wimberly falls victim to the same thing Ash does. It’s too much; each panel is trying too hard to make sure we know that it is parody. By the final page, the pictures are inconsequential and become little more than background noise. Comic stalwart Sal Buscema gives some decent inkwork, but JM Ringuet’s colors are drab, hitting another nail into the coffin of indifference for Black Dynamite.
(2 Story, 2 Art)
