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.