If someone had told me five years ago when I started writing reviews that I'd be reviewing a comic book starring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys in 2020, I'd have laughed at them because back in 2015 that seemed like a ridiculous thing to even comtemplate. But here I am, in July 2020, writing a review of a comic book starring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Except it's more focused on Joe Hardy because apparently, Nancy is dead, and Frank doesn't believe her death was anything more than an accident in Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #1.
I grew up reading The Hardy Boys and I also read at least one Nancy Drew book as my sister owned a bunch of them, but the Hardy Boys were my favourite teen detectives growing up, and I read pretty much every book in the original series as well as a few from The Hardy Boys Casefiles, which was the more mature series from the '80s that was geared more towards older teenagers. While I got rid of the majority of my Hardy Boys book collection, I still own a few of the books, which sit on my shelf in my bedroom. There was also a short lived Hardy Boys TV series in the '90s that my family watched together, alongside a Nancy Drew series. Neither show lasted for more than a season, but my siblings and I enjoyed them, and I think my mom did as well. Either way, the shows were as much a part of my life as the books were.
There's not very much dialogue in this issue. It's mostly narration boxes since Joe is the lone detective in this book. At least for this issue. What there is though is pretty good. I guess it's mirroring the classic detective stories where you have the lone private eye going around and interviewing people with his thoughts being the narration. In the case of the movies, it's a voiceover, and in novels it's the detective narrating the story himself, but in comic books it's narration boxes. Batman comics had them a lot when Batman didn't have Robin, Batgirl or another partner with him in the field. Particularly in 1939 and again in the '70s.
The art in this book is pretty decent. I'm mainly familiar with Joe Eisma's work from the art he did in Archie #'s 13-17 during Mark Waid's run on the book, but I liked his style in that book and it carries over into this one. I just think his art works especially well with teenagers and younger adults. I also like how dark and creepy the artwork looks too. Lots of blacks, grays, and reds are used and it's awesome. It definitely reminds me of some of the original covers for both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels back in the day.
I'm not familiar with the writer on this book, Anthony Del Col. He hasn't done any work for DC or Dark Horse or Image, though he did do a digital first Luke Cage series for Marvel last year. He's a Canadian though and I honestly like his take on these classic characters. He REALLY knows his stuff when it comes to these characters. I mean he even name drops two of the freakin' Bobbsey Twins! Like who even knows who they are anymore, aside from my mom, sister and I? That's a crazy, obscure reference, but it works because The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsey Twins were all published by Grosset & Dunlap with the Bobbsey Twins being the oldest characters to be published by that publisher, as their first novel came out in 1904, over two decades before the world was introduced to Frank and Joe Hardy. I also like that he took the Noir route with this story, because again it works really well with the type of story that it is.
The one thing I don't like about this issue is that it explains a little too much in it. It's a sequel to the previous series, Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie, but it treats it like it's the first issue ever, and so it's sets up the main players pretty well. However, we don't need to know everything that's going on in River Heights. For example, we don't need to know what's going on with the Bobbsey family as cool as that was to have the Bobbsey Twins name dropped. We also don't really need to know about the economic downturn the town has taken recently, aside from the fact that Ned Nickerson, Nancy's boyfriend/love interest in the original novels, is now the mayor and is doing something to try to help it. I mean it might be relevant in a later issue, but if this is seeding something for a later issue, it's not super clear what the endgame is for that aspect of the story. I mean there's world building and then there's over-explaining and I think Del Col is over explaining in this issue. Especially for an issue that has six comics that came out before it.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this was an amazing first issue. If you're a fan of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew I would definitely recommend reading this issue. I'm planning on picking up the trade paperback for the previous series, The Big Lie at some point just so I'm caught up on this reboot of these classic characters. Also if you're a fan of classic detective Noir fiction, I would recommend picking this up. But again there's too much explanation about things that should've been set up in the previous six issues and I think it would've been beneficial for Del Col to refer readers to the previous series for more details and use the space for more development of the current story. Though the reveal at the end is pretty spectacular and worth reading the whole issue to get to. I'm giving Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #1 7.5/10 stars. It's a good story and the art is amazing, but there's too much information in this single issue, which detracts from it a bit for me.
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