Image Advance Arrivals: August 2026
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Death Fight Forever
Everyone knows that the stories which powered the beat-’em-ups of the 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit eras and beyond were more or less nonsense that provided just enough justification as to why everyone in front of you needed to have their face punched in. Now, imagine if someone took that nonsense and tried to wring an actual story about it. That’s what writer Andrew MacLean is trying to do here as super-thief Brash Biggle and Sergeant Marla Mendoza team up to stop the threat of trans-dimensional demon Lord Slyther and his army from taking over the world. MacLean is the right guy for the job as there’s always been a feeling of over-the-top ridiculousness to his signature series, “Head Lopper,” that’s he’s managed to play straight to tell a proper story. Now he looks to be letting his freak flag fly alongside co-artist Alexis Zirtt and I can’t wait to see the results.
Hammerfist #1: Mike Denton is a dirtbag hitman who’s spent most of his life chasing the cheap thrills of drugs and sex as opposed to being a proper father to his daughter. However, when Black Noon – an apocalyptic event that promises to erase the light in all things – comes around, Mike tries to turn it all around by using a supernatural artifact powered by love to fight the embodiment of evil to save her. This comes to us from writer Rick Remender and artist Steve Epting, both creators who’ve done great work in the past. While I’m not worried about Epting’s ability to draw this gritty setup, and his preview pages in the solicitations look pretty nice, Mike feels like the kind of protagonist we’ve seen plenty of times before. Worse is that I’m betting his flaws aren’t going to be presented as being all that bad (this is a redemption story after all). I only read one volume of Remender’s “The Scumbag” because it felt like a disingenuous attempt to laugh at himself that wasn’t all that funny. Now it looks like we’re getting something that plays to all of his weaknesses while taking itself completely seriously.
I’ll still read the first volume, just in case my assessment here turns out to be wrong. The writer’s proven he can surprise me in the past, and I sure as hell hope he’s going to do that here.
The Last Driver #1: In the future, cars aren’t just obsolete – they’re illegal! This is all thanks to the robotic transport system known as the GRID, another tool of the Money Barons in the cities that will finally shut the poor out in the deserts where they belong. The only thing standing in their way is “Clutch,” a legendary driver who’s going to race for our freedom! Put like that, “The Last Driver” sounds like an over-the-top good time as one driver rides against fascism. That it’s coming from one of the best artists in the business, Sean Murphy, gives me hope that we’re going to get some truly awesome car chases in its pages too.
Unfinished Tales: This is the latest graphic novel from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, which is being advance-solicited for November here. Finnegan Blake is the man behind the massively successful “The Knight Fire Tapestry” fantasy series, of which the final volume is due any day now. At least, that’s what some fans are still hoping in the decade since the publication of the penultimate volume even though Finn has been dealing with the mother of all Writer’s Blocks in that time. Fortunately an old friend shows up with the perfect solution to the author’s woes. There’s nothing that could go wrong with this. Right? Clearly, Brubaker is doing his own version of why George R.R. Martin hasn’t finished “A Song of Ice & Fire” yet only with (what I can only hope are) more sinister thriller elements. That’s fine with me, even though the shape of this story does look pretty familiar based on the synopsis here. Let’s hope that the details make it stand out, like they did with “Night Fever.”
Bug Wars: The Coming of the Wardoom #1 (of 8): Slade Slaymaker may have saved his brother and brought peace to The Yard, but now he’s back to being a regular kid in school. Until a new threat emerges to shatter the fragile peace he wrought while exterminators are brought in to rid the old Slaymaker place of all its bugs. Now Slade is going to have to rely on the strange powers and allies he acquired on his last journey through The Yard as he battles threats from within and without. Vol. 1 reminded me why I keep reading comics by Jason Aaron as he took what seemed like a kid-friendly premise and wrung a satisfying “Conan”-esque fantasy epic out of it. Mahmud Asrar brought it vividly to life and while we’ve had a one-shot released following that initial miniseries, I’m glad to see we’re finally getting a proper and longer follow-up to that initial story. Long may the Slaymaker reign!
Death Vigil #1 (of 6): Stjepan Sejic returns to his fantasy/horror/comedy series about a group of supernatural warriors fighting the shadow of our world to protect it from evil threats. This follow-up miniseries has been a LONG time coming: My review of the first (and previous) volume was done over a decade ago. I’ve been meaning to re-read that, and now that this new miniseries is coming out I’ll finally have to make the time to do that! We don’t get any information as to what the story for this run will be about, but Sejic has banked enough goodwill with me through his previous projects that I’m expecting another good time with this one.
Regicide #1 (of 4): You know how it is: You’re a farmhand living a normal life until your village elders tell you to go with the mysterious stranger to kill the murderous ruler of your land. The ruler in question – none other than Dracula himself! Written by Patrick Kindlon with art from Ludovic Lalliat, this miniseries invites some big comparisons by billing itself as a fusion of “Dracula” and “Berserk.” While it’s one thing to compare yourself to the foundational vampire stories (and everyone else has done it), it’s another to one of the greatest fantasy mangas to ever be published. Looking at the preview pages in the solicitation, they don’t look bad, but it’s clear that Kentaro Miura’s legacy is in no danger of being usurped here.
Gigantic: I was really hard on Rick Remender earlier, so let’s talk about this new edition of an old comic he wrote, and Eric Nguyen illustrated, that I missed when it came out. It was a normal day in San Francisco until a giant alien started rampaging through it. Now it’s up to the equally giant-sized human defense force to take it down. Sounds simple, right? Well, in the tradition of the film that it takes as an inspiration, “The Truman Show,” the big twist of the series is spoiled in the solicitation, which kind of sucks. I’m still interested, though, as the setup still sounds interesting with a protagonist who’s stuck in a much different kind of them-versus-the-world setup than we’ve seen from the writer before (or since).
Kick-Ass Compendium: No, it’s not.
Feral vol. 5: While we’re on the subject of spoilers, the big one hinted at in the solicitations for the issues collected in this volume is spilled here. Let’s just say that Elsie and the rest of the cast are getting some high-profile guest stars here as writer Tony Fleecs, and artists Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez finally find a way to build off of the success of their breakout hit miniseries. Which should hopefully juice what was already going to be an interesting storyline after the current status quo was demolished at the end of vol. 4.
The Forged vol. 4: It may not have been made explicitly clear at the end of vol. 3, but it turns out that the aliens who’ve been hounding the empire have only been doing so because the Eternal Empress was trying to take them out first. At least, I think that’s how it went. I may have to go and re-read the previous volume to be sure. Or I could just sell the previous three and cut my losses after vol. 3 didn’t really build on the success of its predecessor. I’ve said this before, but “Decisions, decisions…”
While we’re on the subject of cutting losses…
Free Planet vol. 2: Aubrey Sitterson and Jed Dougherty’s epic about the rewards of freedom and the costs necessary to maintain it reaches its end for now. Normally I’d be happy about a collection that gives us eight issues of a series, but getting through the six collected in vol. 1 was a chore in and of itself. That’s because while Sitterson asked some interesting questions in its pages, most of the answers he provided were uninspiring downers delivered by a cast that came off as mouthpieces rather than characters. Dougherty’s art was really solid, but not enough to make it work. Not helping matters here is how the solicitation text describes the series as, “Designed to function as both literature and art object,” I mean COME ON! Maybe I’ll pick this up just to see if it’s pretentious enough to make me think that militaristic fascism is the right answer after all.