The Monolith
Written and created by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Artwork and Cover by Phil Winslade
Introduction by Jim Steranko
Coloring by Chris Chuckry
Lettering by Nick Napolitano & Phil Balsman
Designed by Bill Tortolini
Edited by Joey Cavalieri & Harvey Richards
Image Comics
Release Date: July 25, 2012
Cover Price: $17.99

It’s odd when DC attempts to ground their weird and exciting fictional universe, full of Kryptonians, Lantern Corps, and Ambush Bugs, in some sort of ‘real’ world. How one defines what’s ‘realistic’ is subjective, of course, and has led to approaches like Batman: Year One and Identity Crisis. As you can see, the typical story involves the same line-up of characters in their same fictional locations. There’s a new direction in The Monolith that writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray took. They created a new character, based not-so-loosely on the Jewish legend of The Golem, and the action in the book is smack-dab in the actual New York City (with Depression-era history attached to boot!).

So how does this stack up? It’s got some good qualities and some bad. And how is this an actual DC book and not, say, a Vertigo title? Well, it’s subtle and shows up around the edges, but I’ll get to that in a bit.