Space Ghost

Space Ghost got his start as a TV 'toon in the late 1960s and later had a delirious run on Comedy Central as an animated talk show host. Now DC offers up a deadly serious origin tale that takes little from the genial character who first popped up on the TV screen. In writer Kelly's vision, Space Ghost is a big, strong guy who was once named Thaddeus and had a pregnant wife and a yen for justice. When Thad gets tapped to join an elite police squad called Commandment, it looks like everything's going his way. Of course, it isn't. He soon discovers that Commandment is corrupt, and a brutal falling-out ends with the squad murdering his wife. Thad recovers from the twin blows by crushing rocks with a hermit on a distant planet, even as eight-foot-tall praying mantis Zorak sets his eye on the tasty human inhabitants of a number of planets. Kelly and Olivetti have created a handsome, complex universe for their hero, but he's a brooding, nearly wordless character, faced with some really dull villains who are fixated on the best way to rip humans apart. Space Ghost, who was always beloved for his personality, exhibits very little of it here. (Aug.)