Image Advance Arrivals: March 2025
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Grommets
It basically came down to a question of which Rick Remender-written collection was getting the top spot this month. I decided to go with the one that seemed like more fun, even if it’s not clear yet how co-writing this with “Deadpool’s” Brian Posehn will affect the writer’s normally merciless writing style. The series is about a couple of up-and-coming skaters in the 1980’s right around the time that skate culture hit the big time worldwide. While there’s definitely going to be some drama in these characters’ journey, Posehn’s presence as well as the bits of art I’ve seen from Brett Parsons implies that this isn’t going to be a downer experience. That said, I hope that, in the list of other-media comparisons made in the solicitation text, this winds up being closer to “Dazed and Confused” than “The Breakfast Club.”
Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #1: Honestly, I’m surprised that we haven’t received something like this sooner in the wake of the “Invincible” animated series’ success. Writer Robert Kirkman and artist Ryan Ottley are returning to the character they created to tell us a story about what he was up to in the gap between his first and second appearances in the comic. The short answer: Violence. The longer answer: EXTREME VIOLENCE! You’re not going to have to twist my arm to get me to read a new series like this, and if they are going to return to the “Invincible” universe to tell more stories, I’d rather have series like this that fill in continuity gaps than try and see them extend the story beyond its already great ending.
We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us #1 (of 6): 13-year-old Annalise’s mad-scientist father has just been killed by the world’s greatest spy. Which means that she can now try to live like a normal person for the first time in her life. Unless she decides to go and get revenge and overthrow the current world order with the help of her late father’s robotic bodyguard. This comes to us from writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Stefano Landini and I can only hope that it has more of the winning irreverence that powers his other creator-owned title at Image, “What’s the Furthest Place From Here?” than the head-up-its-ass storytelling that defined his “WildC.A.T.s” reboot at D.C. But it’s about a Not-Bond-Villan’s daughter looking to get revenge on Not-Bond so it’s at least working from a clever setup here.
Adventureman: Family Tree #1 (of 3): Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson’s series about a family of adventurers returns for another go-round. I’d like to be able to tell you that I’m excited for this, but I can’t because I haven’t read any of it yet. That’s because the series has been published in a hardcover-first format and only the first one has made the transition to softcover. I’ve ordered it, and it’s currently on backorder with no estimated delivery date yet. So I guess what I’m trying to say here is, “Keep watching this space!”
Assorted Crisis Events #1: Writer Deniz Camp and artist Eric Zawadzki give us a series where time is coming apart at the seams. Cavemen, medieval knights, and cyborg soldiers from WWIV are mingling in the Red-Light District while commuters try to avoid getting stuck in time loops and coming face-to-face with alternate-universe versions of themselves. This sounds like the creators are making a sandbox for themselves to tell any kind of story, but without any direction it sounds like you’re going to take the creators at their word that they’re going to deliver something interesting. Which, after reading Camp’s “21st Century Men” and “Children of the Vault” miniseries, I have to say I’m more interested in reading his superhero work than his creator-owned stuff.
Bitter Root: The Next Movement #1 (of 5): The multi-Eisner-winning series returns for another go-round as the setting movies to 1964, the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The Sangerye family is still fighting the Jinoo, creatures born out of racism and hate, but now they’ve evolved into a new form that fewer people can recognize, let alone know how to fight. I gave up on this series after two volumes, but I know it has its fans and they should be thrilled that “Bitter Root” is coming back for another story even if its timing couldn’t be better? Worse?
Kids: Garth Ennis returns with another horror-themed one-shot from Ninth Circle, this time with “Hit-Monkey” artist Dalibor Talajic. What happens one night when every child under the age of one is replaced with a hyper-violent adult version of themselves? One couple of horrified parents is about to find out and maybe even take a crack at solving the mystery of what happened. Assuming they can survive the night. After Ennis’ previous one-shot for the imprint, “Freddie the Fix,” I was wondering how it would be collected. Now it looks like the writer is going to keep doing one-shots for Ninth Circle until there are enough to make a decent-sized collection. Mystery solved.
Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 (of 4): The problem with Skybound’s series of comics about the Universal Monsters is that they’ve been publishing them in hardcover-first collections with creative teams that, despite their own merits, haven’t been exciting enough to convince me to buy them in that format. Well, they’ve finally gone and found one who can: Faith Erin Hicks. Creator of “The War at Ellesmere,” “The Adventures of Superhero Girl,” “Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong” and more, she’s got a great track record for creating quality comics. So if Skybound is going to charge me $25 for a hardcover edition of this four-issue collection, then I guess they’re going to get their way this time.
Black Cloak vol. 2: Writer Kelly Thompson and artist Meredith McClaren’s “Heart in a Box” was amazing. Their follow-up project, vol. 1 of this series, was less so, but still interesting. With vol. 2 we’re now picking up five years after the events of the first volume and the City of Kiros has changed dramatically since then. Former Black Cloak Phaedra Essex is now considered the savior or ruiner of the city depending on who you ask and her former partner Pax is carrying on as best he can with a new rookie partner as a bloody new case lands on their desk. I was expecting more from vol. 1 than what I got, but there’s still potential in this setup, particularly if Thompson and McClaren can deliver some better worldbuilding this time around.
Convert: Science Officer Orrin Kutela has found himself stranded on a distant planet with only the ghosts of his old crew for company. Still, that’s not going to stop him from making a discovery that will change his life and possibly the universe as well. This is a one-off miniseries from writer John Arcudi and artist Savannah Finley, and picking it up is an easy decision as it’s coming from a writer who has as long a history of delivering quality comics as Arcudi does.
Napalm Lullaby: The other series from Rick Remender in this month’s solicitations, featuring art from Bengal. You’ll recall that these two last collaborated on “Death or Glory” which featured one of the most stunning action sequences I’ve ever read in its second volume. While I know I shouldn’t expect history to repeat itself with this collection of the ten-issue series, I’ll settle for being told a more interesting story here. Which could wind up happening as we’re getting a straightforward revenge tale as two of the bastard children of the leader of a cult that has taken over the world and set him up as its God look to tear the whole thing down. So let’s hope that it’s all closer to “A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance” than “The Scumbag.”
Plastic: Death & Dolls: Because you can’t keep a good trilogy about materials-themed serial killers down for long. Writer Doug Wagner and artist Daniel Hillyard return to the first (and best) story in that trilogy as we’re introduced to Edwyn at a couple key points in his life. The first being when he made his initial kill at age 10, and the other being when he met the love of his life: The plastic sex doll known as Virginia. Here’s hoping this winds up being as warped and funny as the original series was.
Redcoat vol. 1: Immortal. A mercenary. Kind of a tool. That’s how the title character, Simon Pure, has been described in promotional material for this title and I hope that irreverent tone is maintained for the series proper. After stumbling onto an immortality-granting ritual back in 1776, Simon has been stumbling through history, never giving too much thought to the charmed life he’s now living. Except when it turns out that the cult behind the ritual may have finally figured out how to use him to DESTROY AMERICA! This comes to us from writer Geoff Johns and artist Bryan Hitch who probably could’ve made me buy this in a hardcover-first edition. That they didn’t is a credit to them and so I’m looking forward to enjoying this when it’s finally released.
Ultramega vol. 2: The first volume of this series was a strange downer of a read despite its quirky humor and incredible visual style from creator James Harren. So it’s probably for the best that Harren is wrapping things up in this second volume. That all of the kaiju-level fighting is going to look amazing is not in question. I just hope that Harren can deliver a story that, if it’s not an actually uplifting read, at least winds up being a downer in ways that I’m not able to see coming.