Image Previews Picks: August 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Step by Bloody Step
There is a girl with no name and no memory. She’s walking through a fantasy world plagued by the terrors of the wilderness and civilization. Except that she’s not alone. She’s accompanied by an armored giant who’s protecting her from any and all threats. Why is the giant doing this? Why is the girl making her way through this strange land? Those are questions that I’m expecting to be answered in the course of reading through this latest series from frequent collaborators Si Spurrier and Matais Bergara. While Spurrier has continued to do good work by trying to get as weird as he possibly can within the confines of DC and Marvel, it’s usually in his creator-owned work that he’s really been able to let his freak flag fly. His last collaboration with Bergara in this space, “Coda,” was a great example of this. “Step by Bloody Step” promises to be weirder and more ambitious by way of its setup, and the fact that this is a “silent” comic with no words at all.
The Last Shadowhawk: Shadowhawk was Jim Valentino’s superhero title for Image and if anyone remembers one thing about the character, it’s that the original person to wear the mantle died of AIDS. Other characters have been Shadowhawk after that, but nobody remembers them, and Valentino is still best known for his work as Vice President of Image Comics in transforming the company to the creator-owned powerhouse it is today. So what’s the deal with “The Last Shadowhawk?” It’s your standard future dystopia story where the character has returned to bring hope to the huddled and beaten-down masses. If you’re hoping to see Valentino return to his signature character, that’s too bad. This one-shot is being co-written by Phillip Tan and Brian Haberlin, with art by Tan.
Love Everlasting #1: If you’ve been wondering when Tom King was going to stop writing “Batman” comics and start doing more creator-owned work, I’ve got great news for you! He’s teamed up with artist Elsa Charretier for a series with a weird meta concept. It’s about Joan Peterson and her unique problem: She’s trapped in a romance comic. Every time she falls in love, she winds up in a new romantic situation waiting to be resolved. While I get that there’s going to be a lot of laughing at the conventions of old-school American romance comics, I get the feeling that King has something more to say about them than that. Call it a hunch after all of the other comics, “Batman” and otherwise, I’ve read from him at DC.
Old Dog #1: Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A tough-as-nails CIA agent goes on one last mission that goes horribly wrong, but he gets a chance to set things right years later. That’s the setup from this new series written and illustrated by Declan Shalvey. I’ve always been more of a fan of Shalvey the artist than Shalvey the writer, so I’m not 100% sold on this. I say this because the solicitation makes the story sound pretty generic (and yes, it even uses the phrase “this old dog will have to learn some new tricks” unironically). So your interest in “Old Dog” is likely to be directly proportional to how you feel about Shalvey as a creator.
20th Century Men: No, Image is not publishing a sequel to Naoki Urasawa’s “20th Century Boys.” This is a story about a Russian mech pilot, a superpowered American president, and an Afghan woman who walk into a bar… Okay, I’ll stop. It’s really about what happens when these three people meet in a world filled with superheroes, geniuses, madmen, and activists who are all racing towards WWIII. This sounds like an interesting mix, even though I’m not familiar with the work of writer Deniz Camp and artist S. Moran to have a feel for how excited I should be about this. Maybe I’ll check out the first collection to see if I’d rather have had Urasawa do a sequel to his signature work instead.
Dead Lucky #1: I can’t say for sure, but I think that when the solicitation text calls this “the newest book in the MASSIVE-VERSE” they mean it’s part of the same universe as “Radiant Black.” Because of the “Supermassive” event one-shot that came out, I guess. Anyhow, this comes to us from writer Melissa Flores and artist French Carlomagno and it’s about a veteran of the Afghanistan War who came back home with PTSD… and the ability to control electrical currents! That sounds like a superhero origin to me, and she’s even got her own supervillains to fight in the form of tech consortium Morrow and their peacekeeping robots and the Salvation gang. None of this sounds bad, but it still bothers me to see “Radiant Black” expanding like this. I like the series, just not enough to start investing in a superhero universe that’s spun out from it.
Golden Rage #1 (of 5): This is a series that’s being pitched as “The Golden Girls” meets “Battle Royale.” I hear that and say, “That’s the exact amount of dumb I need to get excited about something!” Bring it on writer Chrissy Williams, and artist Laura Knight! While we’re on the subject of dumb…
Shirtless Bear-Fighter 2 #1 (of 7): The first series took a bog-standard plot about a dude coming out of retirement for one last mission and made it the craziest version of that plot you could ask for. Now writer Jody LeHup and artist Nil Vendrell are back to tell us the origin of Shirtless and how it will have him cross paths with the bear god Ursa Major! I am so down for this… even as I wonder what’s taking LeHup and artist Nathan Fox so long with the concluding volume of their sci-fi series “The Weatherman.” Sorry to bring everyone down like that, but I’d really like to know.
Die HC: Now you can enjoy the least-good series from writer Kieron Gillen in one complete volume! Yes, the art from Stephanie Hans was fantastic, but I was expecting something less rigid in its worldbuilding. Which is why I had so much fun re-reading “Monstress” at the same time I was re-reading this for the podcast.
Newburn vol. 1: Well, it’s time to consider whether or not to give Chip Zdarsky another chance. Either I’ll get around to reading his “Daredevil” run before this comes out, or I’ll check out this series. Which is about a private investigator… who only works for criminals. So when war threatens to break out between rival crime families, he’s just the man to investigate why this conflict is happening in the first place. Also up for a reappraisal with this volume is Jacob Phillips, son of Sean, who turned in some decent work on the otherwise regrettably predictable first volume of “That Texas Blood.”
Radiant Black vol. 3: You know how I talked about the “Supermassive” one-shot above? How it was meant to be spinning out of “Radiant Black?” Well, guess what’s not being collected here. That isn’t a problem because that means I can keep on enjoying this series on its own terms… until the inevitable crossovers between series start. As for what to expect from this series, Marshal is looking forward to some downtime after solving most of the problems facing him in the previous volume. That’s a nice aspiration to have, but if the previous volume is any indication, then the problems are just going to keep coming while also becoming bigger and weirder along the way. Like that giant space war he jumped into for a hot second in vol. 2. How long do you think it’ll be before that comes to Earth?
Sweet Paprika vol. 2: Mirka Andolfo’s frothy romantic comedy wraps up in its second volume. Will Paprika get with that studly producer she has the hots for? Will she recognize that buff delivery guy Dill is quite a catch on his own terms? Will she give her ex and her dad the throttling they both so richly deserve? Will Andolfo delve any deeper into the worldbuilding implied by her characters’ angelic and demonic character designs? Unlikely. Almost certainly. I certainly hope so! And, don’t get your hopes up.