Mr. Majestic

This collection of large-scale superhero adventures is powered by over-the-top ideas. Joe Casey and co-writer Brian Holguin set their stories across the cosmos, while Ed McGuinness draws a hugely muscled alien-to-look-up-to hero in Mr. Majestic.

The first story features Majestic having to hide our solar system from aliens. Desmond, his super-smart boy inventor friend, is only one of the many scientists that help plan a solution to the problem. It’s refreshing to hear, early on, Majestic disavowing the idea that he can just punch something as a fix; intelligence is the ultimate winning tactic. At the same time, we’re talking about someone who’s moving planets and reshaping galactic geography in a story set over decades.

After bending space to his will, the second adventure pits Majestic against time, with a series of anomalies ranging from the scary (revisiting the Cuban Missile Crisis) to the ludicrous (Liberace back from the dead). The third sends him on a date with Ladytron, a foul-mouthed cyborg who promotes the rights of machines, in a story that also ponders the nature and use of violence in entertainment.

Other stories deal with Majestic’s son, an alien prison escape, and a group of intergalactic hypnotic Ultravixens. There’s also a spotlight by Alan Moore and Carlos D’Anda that jumps ahead in time to show a much older Majestic meeting with the other eight beings left alive in the universe as it comes to an end.

Mr. Majestic has the classic complement of powers — flight, strength, invulnerability — but because he’s not that well-known, the writers aren’t overly constrained with years of history determining what he can and can’t do. No getting cats out of trees here — the threats are huge and the responses even bigger. These are amazing stories of Silver-Age-style wonder presented in a modern style.