Others, like Mark Markz, the Martian shapeshifter known to Spiral City as Barbalien, were still struggling to make a go of life on the farm, though not for lack of trying. A return to the farm would be less of a sacrifice for Abe Slamkowski (aka Abraham Slam), who seemed pretty content there, having formed relationships with the residents of Rockwood, including a romantic one.
The series opened with its lead characters having been trapped on the farm for 10 years, and in that time some had adjusted to being there better than others. The sacrifice these heroes make is particularly powerful considering where they were mentally and emotionally in the beginning. Faced with the calamity Anti-God’s return would bring, the heroes made the only choice they could: to return to the farm and leave Spiral City behind in order to save the universe. Essentially, escape from the farm and a return home also meant the impending return of Anti-God, the reality-destroying entity the heroes had previously defeated immediately prior to being transported to the farm. With those answers, though, came unexpected consequences for the heroes of Spiral City. With the help of Lucy Weber, daughter of the original Black Hammer and the latest to wield the cosmic weapon, all the mysteries around the farm and what brought Abraham Slam, Barbalien, Golden Gail, Colonel Weird, Talky-Walky, and Madame Dragonfly there have been solved. Last week’s finale, Black Hammer: Age of Doom #12, answers that question once and for all.
For the returning soldier in the song, the question is whether the comfort of a simple life on the farm will be supplanted by the culture of the wider world they experienced while at war for the heroes of Black Hammer, the argument is whether they should try to make things work on the farm, or if they should continue to investigate how to get back to where they came from. There’s a thematic similarity between the song and the series, too-they’re both about the inherent nature of people to grow restless in their surroundings, and the desire for something more. It’s not just because of the core conceit of the series, about a team of superheroes trapped on a mysterious farm in the town of Rockwood, trying alternately to adjust to being there and to find their way home. With the end of the ‘farm story’ act of Jeff Lemire ’s and Dean Ormston ’s Black Hammer having arrived last Wednesday, that song has been on my mind a lot. I first heard a more melancholy version of it by Andrew Bird a few years back. The song as originally recorded was a somewhat jaunty novelty tune, and Judy Garland sang it that way in the film For Me and My Gal. The mother believes her sons will be content to return to their farm, while the father, Reuben, knows that farm life won’t be enough for the boys after having traveled around the world. “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)” is framed as a conversation between parents awaiting the return of their soldier sons. Lewis published a song about soldiers returning home from the war.
In February of 1919, less than five months after the end of World War I, songwriters Walter Donaldson, Joe Young, and Sam M.