Comixology has released the fifth and final issue of Roy Thomas and Ron Harris’ meta-superhero series ALTER EGO, published by Grand Design client Heroic Publishing. Created in 2012 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of the original four-issue ALTER EGO series in 1987, Thomas and Harris’ story “Alter Ego Fights Crime” reflects on the crime comic books of the 1950s just as the original series played on the Golden Age super-heroes of the 1940s, paying homage to Lev Gleason and Charles Biro’s seminal crime comic Crime Does Not Pay and it’s ‘host’, Mr. Crime. Hannah Means Shannon of Bleeding Cool reviewed ALTER EGO #5 in her Spotlight on ComiXology Submit column, writing:
There’s plenty of culture clash, from the treatment of women to the actual death of villains, reminding us of pre-code days and the heavy feel of Lindsay emerging as a “sadder and wiser” man is a very satisfying reminder of just where comics have been and how they continue to temper our storytelling expectations. The artwork is crisp and handled with great attention to detail and atmosphere, all making for a visually entrancing read–here’s hoping there’s a #6 on the way.
Comics Bulletin also reviewed ALTER EGO #5, with a review by Jason Sacks in their “weekly round up of non-paper comics”, Digital Ash:
With artist Ron Harris, Thomas creates a comfortably charming take on early 1950s crime comics, one of the most interesting eras of the history of the medium. In this time-spanning yarn (full of the delicious paradoxes for which Thomas is justifiably famous), the retro-hero Alter Ego is transported back inside a virtual issue of the archetypical Crime Does Not Pay, where the creative team riffs on some classic riffs from that classic series and grounds our hero in typically exaggerated crime.