With a reintroduced teenage superhero, writer Sterling Gates is giving out some good vibes. While other DC Comics series tend toward the dark, Gates’ Vibe book takes an old character from the 1980s Justice League title and lets readers get to know him just as he’s becoming familiar with his new life as a protector.
“It’s nice to tell Vibe’s story now,” Gates says. “That character had a lot of baggage in fans’ eyes and we’ve been working really hard to unpack those bags and show people that he’s actually a really great character.”
Geoff Johns debuted the new Vibe earlier this year as a team member in Justice League of America, and kicked off his own series with Arrow TV producer Andrew Kreisberg. Gates took over the series as writer last month with the third issue. His goal is to tell a hero’s journey with Vibe, he says, as well as “a really nice coming-of-age story for this kid as he learns what it’s like to be a superhero and to really stand by your beliefs and to stand for what you think is right, even when everyone is telling you you’re wrong.”
A Detroit teen, Cisco Ramon was in the crossfire when the evil Darkseid and his minions from Apokolips attacked the world five years ago, an event that gave Cisco astounding vibration powers and the ability to recognize beings from other dimensions but also claimed the life of his older brother Armando. Now in the present, Cisco has been recruited by the government agency A.R.G.U.S. to act as a “border cop” to help identify possible enemies that could cause a ruckus on Earth.
Available Wednesday in comic shops and digitally, Vibe issue 4 finds Cisco becoming more aware of the superhero world he’s immersed in now and that maybe it’s not all what it’s cracked up to be since A.R.G.U.S. is using him to hunt down possibly innocent beings.
