Well, that’ll save some time. And money. And arguments over the existence of the Straczynski code to writing: amazing first act followed by a mediocre second act followed by a third act–or rather, maybe followed by a third act eventually, sometimes, maybe. Rather than having us invest our energies in his new series, The Hangman, only to be eventually disappointed/frustrated (frusapointed?) by its inevitable decline, JMS was kind enough to lead with the banal. The Hangman is a standard origin issue, showing how a Civil War doctor wrongly accused of spying made a deal with The Devil/God to become The Hangman (article included). Now seemingly immortal, The Hangman uses a horse, a healing factor, and a magically disappearing mustache to defend all those who have been similarly wrongly accused. The Hangman also sports a KKK-like hood and a noose dangling from his neck, which, besides from being fantastically impractical, are fairly offensive–hate to be the poor wrongly accused black dude who sees this guy running down some alley to “save” him. The comic as a whole is pretty terrible. The bad guy’s are generic. The hero is forgettable. The art borders on the ridiculous if not atrocious. The facial hair, again, is distractingly odd (clean shaven on the cover, alter ego has long well trimmed mustache, The Hangman has no mustache and a 5 O’clock shadow–all very weird). Now, it’s been well established that JMS is one of the modern masters of the art of first issues (Supreme Power, Thor, Rising Stars), and it is therefore rather perplexing that The Hangman #1 doesn’t quite hang together. However, in the larger context of the Straczynski code, this all may make sense. JMS has repeatedly not lived up to expectation on a micro level inside each run or series; it was perhaps only matter of time before he did the same on a macro level–setting up a reputation for excellent beginnings and then failing to produce the next excellent beginning. In that sense the issue was predictably frusapointing.