Image Previews Picks: March 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Radiant Black vol. 2: Team-Up
The first volume of this series was one of the best surprises I read all year. One of the many disappointments in growing older is that it becomes harder for the things I like to surprise me. This is as true of comics as it is for everything else. In the case of “Radiant Black” vol. 1, it did a good job of presenting the “Ordinary Guy Becomes Superhero” tropes in a likeable way. Then, two-thirds of the way in, the series pulled the rug out from under me and we’re suddenly looking at these tropes from a very different perspective. It’s also a perspective that had the tension cranked way up after the final issue featuring the main story indicated that things were about to get a whole lot worse for our main character.
So yeah, I’m very interested to see where writer Kyle Higgins and artist Marcelo Costa, and their friends, are going to go with this. Maybe not interested enough to follow things through to the “Radiant Universe” that they’re looking to spin out of this, but we’ll see if I feel differently after this volume. In the meantime, Higgins and Costa can congratulate themselves on convincing me that there’s at least one spinoff from this series that I’m interested in reading about…
Radiant Red #1 (of 5): Everyone’s the hero in their own story. Even someone who winds up with cosmic powers and uses them to rob a bank. That was one of the takeaways I got from Red’s spotlight in the sixth issue of “Radiant Black.” Red is actually Satomi Shen, a middle-school teacher loved by her students and family. Her fiance as well, even though he’s got a gambling problem that is threatening to sink them both. While the bank-robbing has bought Satomi some breathing room in regards to figuring out how to deal with that, her status as Radiant Red is bringing all-new, and all-unwanted attention to her. Cherish Chen, co-writer of “Radiant Black” #6, is joined by artist David LaFuente for this miniseries which looks to dig deeper into Satomi’s life to see if being the hero in your own story means ruining it for everyone else.
Astro City: That Was Then… Special #1: This is the first new issue of “Astro City” material produced at Image in well over a decade. It won’t be the last either. As you’d expect, Kurt Busiek writes and Brent Anderson illustrates this story about five teen sidekicks trying to unearth the history of a superhero team known as the Jayhawks in 1969. Joining the creators to celebrate the title’s return to Image are Erik Larsen, Marcelo Costa, Leandro Fernandez, Jamie McKelvie, Chip Zdarsky, and Rob Guillory all doing “homage” covers featuring Astro City characters interacting with their creator-owned titles.
Little Monsters #1: Jeff Lemire teams up with Dustin Nguyen for this story about the last kids on Earth. Who are also vampires. Who may also encounter “shocking events fracture the group and set them on a path of discovery that will shatter their innocence forever.” Those quotation marks are there to mark the fact that I took those words directly from the solicitation text and to express sarcasm as well. Because whatever these shocking events are, they can’t be as interesting as advertised. This is what I’ve learned to expect from reading Lemire’s comics work over the past few years.
Ghost Cage #1 (of 3): This is Nick Dragotta’s first major work since the end of “East of West” and he’s teamed up with co-writer Caleb Goellner to deliver it. It’s about what happens when a group of terrorists take over a power plant that belongs to the most powerful scientist in the world. Said scientist then sends in his most powerful robot to take it back. I’m always up for seeing more of Dragotta’s energetic and imaginative art, while the cover to the first issue also gives me some good “Robocop” vibes.
The Ghost in You: A Reckless Book: Four volumes in and creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips decide to change things up a bit. This time around the focus is on Ethan’s assistant Anna who winds up having to investigate the house of a former “scream queen” to prove that it’s not actually haunted. Given how this series takes place in the real world, ghosts are certainly not involved. However, the murders that occurred there may be a bit more relevant to this story. All three volumes in this series have been great reads and I don’t see that changing here, even with Anna taking the lead this time around. I’m just hoping that this doesn’t wind up being her last case. Hey, it could happen. This series isn’t subtitled “An Anna Book,” you know.
A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance vol. 1: This is the latest series from writer Rick Remender, who has teamed with artist Andre Lima Araujo this time out. It’s about an ordinary guy who stumbles upon a contract for an assassin to kill an innocent family and decides to make himself the target instead. I can see this working as a pure action series, with a lot of cat-and-mouse games between the assassin and his would-be target. Even if there is plenty of action to be had, it’s likely to come with lots of commentary about what things are wrong with the world today because that’s just how Remender rolls. It’s getting to the point where the writer’s output is starting to feel as uneven as someone like Matt Fraction’s, but as Remender’s last new series was “The Scumbag,” this title has a low bar to clear in comparison.
Deep Beyond vol. 2: The second and concluding volume of this sci-fi series. What started out as a dystopian deep-sea exploration/horror series transitioned into an interdimensional fight for freedom by the end of the first volume. I can’t fault this title’s ambition, or capacity for weirdness, even if the characters inhabiting it weren’t as well-drawn as its scenery. It was, however, interesting enough that I’ll be picking up this volume just to see how it all wraps up.
Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee vol. 4: Scorched Earth: Vol. 3 ended with peace between the Scorched Earth Clan and the Temple of the Flaming Fist. This means that Owen Johnson can get back to living a normal life with his family in suburbia, right? So long as he’s willing to forget about the fact that his first love is actually alive. Oh, and that there are people who can turn into snakes out there looking for him as well. Knowing how Kirkman likes his drama, my guess is that Owen will likely dive into the latter issue in order to avoid dealing with the former one… and only make things worse for himself in the process. All this should make for some entertaining soap-opera action/adventure in the “Invincible” mold for us readers, though.
Two Moons vol. 2: Ghost War: John Arcudi and Valerio Giangiordano’s Civil War-set monster-hunting series with a Native American protagonist turned out to be a pretty good read. It also turned out to not be the exercise in commercial suicide I was expecting and we’ve been graced with a second volume. This time out, Two Moons is in Kansas having to deal with the unquiet dead from the Indian Wars. I would’ve liked to have a little bit more to go on from there, but I’m plenty invested in Two Moon’s journey after the first volume.