Image Previews Picks: July 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Ghost Cage
What do you do if you’re a brilliant scientist who revolutionized energy generation, who now controls all of it on Earth, and whose headquarters have now come under attack from terrorist looking to take it all from him? You send out your ultimate peacekeeping solution to take out these terrorists as well as any unpleasant secrets that might be in there as well. This comes to us from Nick Dragotta (with co-writer Caleb Goellner) who, among other things, made “East of West” look stunning from beginning to end. Now he’s back with another sci-fi action story that looks to crank things up to 11. Maybe it won’t have anything to offer besides some expertly constructed action scenes, but if they’re as good as I’m expecting them to be then that will likely be enough.
Rogues’ Gallery #1: Now here’s a series with a good high concept: Maise Wade is a superhero on TV and while that may have started out as something fun, she’s since come to despise the character that made her famous. However, she’s going to need to tap into some of that hero’s resolve when she’s faced with a home invasion by some hooligans who are cosplaying as her character’s rogues gallery. I’m intrigued even though I’m not familiar with either writer Hannah Rose May or artist Justin Mason. Declan Shalvey is credited here as a co-creator with May, but he’s only providing a variant cover here. It makes you wonder how he snagged a co-creator credit here. Did he and May come up with the premise in a pub over a long night of drinks?
Starhenge Book One: The Dragon and the Boar #1 (of 6): Merlin has come back in time to 5th Century Britain for one reason – to prevent time-traveling robots from wiping out all magic in the universe! The solicitation text describes this as “The Terminator” meets “The Green Knight” and I’m really curious to see whether or not writer/artist Liam Sharp can make that amalgamation work. The preview art that I’ve seen makes it look like the creator is working in the same painted style that started showing off in “The Green Lantern: Season Two.” So expect some face-meltingly intense visuals, and hopefully a story that can back them up.
Above Snakes #1 (of 5): This is a miniseries about a man named Dirt seeking revenge for his murdered wife with nothing but a talking vulture for company. It doesn’t sound like much, but the solicitation text assures me that it’s “a world where Deadwood-style Westerns collide with the fantasia of Neil Gaiman,” which is certainly something. The main reason I’m mentioning this series is because it’s being written by Sean Lewis, with art from Hayden Sherman. Lewis has a couple creator-owned titles to his credit, “The Few,” and “Thumbs” are named in the solicitation text, but he’s probably best known as the writer of “King Spawn” and “The Scorched.” Part of me wants to check this out just to see if Lewis is actually a good writer, or if he got those jobs because McFarlane wanted a competent writer who could also be a good Yes Man to all of his ideas.
The Hollows: I’m getting “I Am Legend” vibes from this one-shot about a scientist who’s working to find a cure for the once-human husks that prey on the people still living on the ground in a dystopian, near-future Japan. There are also giant trees where the majority of the population live and a one-eyed orphan girl and her sidekick… thing that may hold the key to the scientist’s struggles. This comes to us from writer Chris Ryall and artist Sam Kieth, who’ve done more work over the years for IDW than anywhere else. As to why they’re publishing this intriguing-sounding story through Image, your guess is as good as mine.
Prophet #1: Remastered Edition: “Remastered” in this case means that creator Rob Liefeld got a lot of his artist friends to redraw a page each of the first issue of this series. In case you’re wondering how far Liefeld’s connections go, Kenneth Rocafort, Dan Panosian, Philip Tan, Ed Piskor, Tom Scioli, and Jim Rugg are only a few of the contributors to this project. All that said, they’re still working off of Liefeld’s original script for this series. So the main appeal of this issue is going to be the art, without question.
Skybound X #25: You can’t keep a good anthology series down as Robert Kirkman brings it back to spotlight four upcoming series from his imprint. One of these is “Battle Beast,” and it features the character from “Invincible” in a story written by Kirkman with art from Ryan Ottley. I can’t remember if they’re doing this series themselves, but it seems unlikely since they’re both very busy with other projects. Next is “Dark Ride” from the creative team behind “Birthright,” writer Joshua Williamson and artist Andre Bressan. Then there’s “Kroma” from “Oblivion Song” artist Lorenzo De Felici, and “Scurry” from Mac Smith. While I’d still like to get my hands on the “Skybound X” miniseries that came out last year, this feels like less of a priority since the possibility of these stories being collected in the first trades of the aforementioned series still exists.
Stray Dogs: Dog Days: What do you do when your miniseries about dogs who’ve been adopted by a serial killer blows up into a big commercial success, but was clearly designed to be a done-in-one story? You take a look at your cast of canines and dig deep into their histories to find out what makes them tick. That’s what writer Tony Fleecs and artist Trish Forstner have done with this anthology series. While I’m not expecting them to make a whole franchise out of this setup, the concept and execution were strong enough to make me think that revisiting this series will be fun for at least this next go-round.
Nocterra vol. 2: Pedal to the Metal: The world is still dark, but our protagonists now have a goal: To get to Eos, the place where darkness first descended on the world. They’ve also got someone on their tail in the form of Blacktop Bill, the driver who thrives on darkness so much that his character design absorbs all light. While Scott Snyder and Tony Daniel will continue the main story in this volume, we’ll also be getting a look at just how Bill got so black in his origin special, illustrated by Denys Cowan. I don’t know if they’ll be telling us why his character looks like that, but my guess is that the explanation will be an entertaining mixture of horror and silliness. Call it a hunch I have after reading the first volume.
Lazarus: Risen #7: The problem with quarterly series is that new issues take so long to arrive that you can forget that a series is still coming out. Fortunately that’s the case with “Lazarus” – the fact that it’s still coming out – and better still is that this is listed as the finale to the current story arc. Which means that the next volume should be in the August solicitations? Right, Greg? Michael?