Warning: contains spoilers for Black Hammer Reborn #1
Black Hammer is back, but she's nowhere close to swinging. At the start of Dark Horse's Black Hammer Reborn, she's retired and doing everything in her power for it to stay that way, so much so that she's effortlessly putting all other superheroes who have attempted retirement to shame.
Ever since her debut in 2016, Black Hammer's universe has proliferated in amazing fashion with multiple spin-off series, including The Quantum Age and Black Hammer: Age of Doom. Now, that universe is entering into its second of multiple planned phases, and it looks as though the majority of it will transpire from the sidelines. Lucy Weber has gone the way of Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns... Retirement. But, unlike her peers who have retired before her and bounced back, it feels as though she might actually stay there.
Lucy Weber has a family and would probably be a soccer mom if one of her two children played. But, like all retirees before her, she's struggling with having let go of her superhero identity in Black Hammer Reborn #1, by Jeff Lemire, Mike Richardson, Josie Christensen, Caitlin Yarsky, Dave Stewart, Nate Piekos, and Ethan Kimberling. Her sense of loss is worse than those before her though. It's portrayed as her having lost Black Hammer twice, not once like most heroes. She reveals that her father was Black Hammer, and that, when he died, she took his mantle. So when she eventually lays her father's hammer to rest after committing an undisclosed yet brutally violent act, Lucy views it as having lost Black Hammer twice.
Remarkably, despite these intense feelings, Lucy is determined to not wield the original Black Hammer's hammer again. Of course, there are numerous other factors at play that should be pushing the hammer back into her hands. Her job is terrible, she thinks her daughter's on drugs, her husband has been cheating on her, supervillains are now suddenly back, and one of her fellow retirees, Amanda Reyes, is even laying on some intense guilt-tripping to convince Lucy to become Black Hammer again. She hasn't even been hiding her other identity from her family, which is usually what keeps retired superheroes in retirement. Before Lucy tells her husband to leave, even he says, "Maybe you should become Black Hammer again." That's how bad things are getting.
Despite all this, Lucy stays firm as the issue closes with her thinking, "I will never become Black Hammer again," and it doesn't look as if she will give up the fight any time soon. The teaser for Black Hammer Reborn #2 reveals that Lucy will be struggling to keep her daughter from following the path of a superhero. So that means she is being forced to fight against Black Hammer on yet another level.
Although readers undoubtedly want Lucy Weber to brandish her father's hammer again, the true essence of Dark Horse's new series is how Lucy has become the quintessential retired superhero. This particular trope has been explored numerous times in comics, but the hero always finds themselves donning the cape as they did before, eventually. It's inevitable. Yet, there's something about Lucy's determination that gives the impression that she might actually be serious. There have been a plethora of heroes before her who have given up on their retirement charade after facing just a sliver of what Lucy is experiencing now. Now, the question on everyone's lips is, Will she actually stay in retirement forever, or will her daughter become the next hero in Black Hammer Reborn?
source https://screenrant.com/dark-horse-black-hammer-retired-superhero-comics/
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