And so here, at the end, it all comes together : everything Josh and Samuel Bayer have been aiming for throughout the course of the first “season” of their sprawling, multi-faceted project “clicks” into place with All-Time Comics : Blind Justice #2. Is it flawless? No. The highs and lows aren’t so much smoothed out as they are — assigned to their proper positions. And the end result is, finally, a comic that filters “Bronze Age” sensibilities through a modern “alt-comics” lens, and vice-versa — simultaneously.

It’s a tough balancing act, to be sure, but Josh B. has a much more firm handle on his character (who I still don’t think is blind) this time out, and so when he sends him out of Optic City and into the hills to track down his villainous prey, readers feel as our protagonist does : a stranger in an even stranger land, pursuing a foe who might just be able to beat him.

You want “old meets new” done right? How about Noah Van Sciver inked by Al Milgom? Distinctive cartooning meets workmanlike finishes that in no way negate the personality of the art, with colorist Matt Rota applying superb finishing touches by means of a broader-than-“Bronze Age” palette applied within distinct “Bronze Age” parameters. This comic is a legit treat for the eyes, and the stripped-down wilderness survival storyline reads as smooth as the pictures look. As a final “kicker,” Rick Parker’s letters complete the holistic aesthetic package, modified from his usual fonts just enough to straddle the line between then and now without either coming into conflict with the other.

It took some doing, but in the bottom of the ninth, everybody comes through here and the potential the Bayers saw in their concept from the outset is confidently, and fully, on display. From Das Pastoras’ well-executed cover to the “fake ads” (more on which momentarily), everything about this comic works. It won’t be of any interest to readers who have no time or patience for works heavily imbued with nostalgia, true, but the nostalgic influences here are just part of the “sizzle,” they’re not the “steak.” Not every creator who participated in this initial six-issue run got that right, but these guys all do this time around, and you know what? It leaves me feeling very optimistic indeed about ATC’s future.

Speaking of which —

At $24.99, the All-Time Comics “season one” trade paperback recently released from Floating World Comics (thus freeing this line from being referred to, and saddled with the title of, “the Fantagraphics super-hero comics”) offers absolutely terrific value for money, and comes complete with all those fake ads we just mentioned, as well as the “Bullpen Bulletins”-style text pages and pin-ups (by a murderer’s row of cartooning talent) that rounded out each single issue. Yeah, it’s an uneven read, but as mentioned at the outset of this week, the stories read much better together than they do piecemeal, and you can see the various and disparate parts slowly coming together to form, at the very end, a nicely cohesive whole. Bring on Zerosis Deathscape, Josh Simmons, and Trever Von Eeden! I’m ready for anything, and together with Josh Bayer, Ken Landgraf, Gabrielle Bell, and the others involved in “season two,” who knows? We might just get it!

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