DCnU - Resurrection Man #1 from DC's New 52

Resurrection Man, one of the New 52's most unusual heroes is written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with art by Fernando Dagnino.

The comic starts off by showing us what is unique about Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man. The comic starts with him coming back from the dead. He rises from the dead, and finds that he has some sort of magnetic powers, and an urge to get on a flight to Portland. His powers change with each life. Each time he dies and comes back, he has a different power, and a different feeling of a task he must accomplish.

He gets on his flight, and a woman named "Sue" sits down beside him, offering her left hand to shake. Mitch notes both her attractiveness, and the oddity of her not knowing how to shake hands.

She proceeds to read the reasons of various other people on the plane for travelling to Portland, tells a bit of the future, tells Mitch his soul is overdue, rants that "they are close" and turns into a four-armed angel of death.

Yup, it's going to be that kind of ride.

The air marshall tries to stop the angel, and pays for it with his life. Mitch and Sue take their battle outside, where he uses his magnetic powers to try to hold the plane together, and to attract a lightning strike to Sue. That seems to take care of her. Unfortunately, the shockwave knocks Mitch off the plane and into the engine. He dies, and the plane goes down, just like Sue said it would.

Mitch wakes up a little later. New powers, being watched by the Mysterious Lady in Red, and turns into water and flows away from the scene of the crash.

We get a quick look at a pair of women trying to track Mitch down at the morgue he first woke up in. These would be the "Body Doubles" from his original series. Still beautiful, still placing no value on human life.

A fireman on the scene is sporting the same teardrop tatoo/marking that Sue had, and identifies himself as Suriel. One of the four Archangels, and a benevolent angel of death. He tells the "bosy upstairs" that Mitch's soul is "So bright, like it is polished by coming back so often." He also mentions that it seems the "basement office" is interested in Mitch as well.

Finally, we see Xanadu doing a reading, and the Resurrection Man keeps coming back. And this time, that means trouble.

This story is well-paced. It gives us a solid introduction to Mitch Shelley and his powers, as well as to the forces arraying against him. And I am a sucker for a well-written struggle between Heaven and Hell.

The art is dramatic, and suits the supernatural nature of the story very well.

This was a strong comic, and I'm looking forward to the second issue. The only potential downfall is that as much as I love a good struggle between the upstairs and downstairs offices, I can be a pretty harsh judge as well. It will not take a large misstep for me to drop this book. So far, all signs point to sticking around.