Image Advance Arrivals: June 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Rock Candy Mountain Complete
This series passed me right by when it came out because its creator wasn’t on my radar at all. Seven years later and I now look forward to whatever writer/artist Kyle Starks does next. Looking at the solicitation for this collection of the entire eight-issue series, it’s clear that I missed out on some choice insanity. “Rock Candy Mountain” is about the world’s toughest hobo looking for the titular place. Before he gets there, he’s going to have to deal with underground fight clubs, trainyard bullies, the world’s toughest FBI agent and The Literal Devil. While I’m keen on finding out what I’ve missed, the price for this collection is right too at $20 for 232 pages.
Falling in Love on the Path to Hell #1: It’s not quite an exact match-up in terms of the actual historical timeline but samurai and gunslingers of the wild west went out at around the same time. This fact has not gone unnoticed by writer Gerry Duggan who gives us this supernatural romance adventure about a female samurai and a male gunslinger who both die badly, wake up in purgatory, and find each other. Nothing’s going to stand in the way of true love… save for the army of the damned warriors who run the place. It’s not a bad concept, though, Duggan hasn’t really wowed me with his ability to write romance in his “X-Men” work. This should look good coming from artist Garry Brown, however.
Houses of the Unholy: The latest Brubaker/Phillips joint. This time it has an FBI agent teaming up with a woman who has a history with the Satanic Panic of the 80’s to stop an insane killer. That’s good enough for me, even as the solicitation text adds some stuff about whether or not we can ever escape our past. “Where The Body Was” proved that this team isn’t infallible, but they can still deliver something that’s quite readable even when it falls short of greatness. Still, let’s hope the details in this story bring it closer to the quality of “Night Fever” than their most recent work… Which wasn’t a sentence I thought I’d be writing a year ago.
Plastic: Death & Dolls #1 (of 5): Writer Doug Wagner and artist Daniel Hillyard return to the scene of their first (and best) installment of their Materials Trilogy. Remember Edwyn, the (former) serial killer who was in love with a plastic sex doll? If you do, you might also be wondering how he came to meet Virginia in the first place and what his life was like before her. It’s a solid enough concept for the creators to explore here and I’m interested in seeing if they’re able to manage the balance of creepiness and comedy that made the original miniseries so memorable.
Rifters #1: This new series is about a couple of cops… vice cops… vice time-cops. Yes, Fenton and Geller are a couple of smartasses who are as good at busting time-traveling criminals as they are at failing to follow the rules. This has worked out well for them so far, but things are threatening to take a turn for the serious when their usual docket of busting social medial influencers trying to sell hooch in Prohibition-Era Chicago expands to include murder! While I’m not familiar with the artist of this series, Chris Johnson, I do know a thing or two about the people co-writing it: Brian Posehn and Joe Trohman. The former is a comedian who broke into comics writing “Deadpool” with Gerry Duggan, and the latter is the guitarist for Fall Out Boy who is currently co-writing “The Holy Roller” with Rick Remender and Andy Samberg. You’ll notice that both of those projects include writers who have actually written comics by themselves. So, will two co-writers whose day jobs are in other media combine to produce one solidly written comic book? I think I’m going to have to buy the collected edition to find out.
Scarlett #1 (of 5): This isn’t the only Energon Universe launch in these solicitations (“Destro” by Dan Watters and Andrei Bressan is also here), but it’s the only one I might actually read. That’s because it’s coming from Kelly Thompson, and she can be counted on to deliver well-written comics. Even when they involve a franchise that I haven’t legitimately enjoyed since I was a kid. Shana “Scarlett” O’Hara is about to face the toughest challenge of her black-ops career: Infiltrating Clan Arashikage. Even though I don’t have an extensive knowledge of “G.I. Joe” history, I can at least tell you that’s the ninja clan who trained Snake Eyes. There are also some spoiler-censored covers solicited here, so start placing your bets on what Transformer Clan Arashikage has chained up in their basement in the same way that Cobra Commander has done to Megatron. Marco Ferrari will be illustrating that, as well as the rest of the issue.
Black Cloak #7: While we’re on the subject of Thompson, her fantasy police procedural with artist Meridith McClaren returns for its next arc. The first volume ended with Black Cloak Phaedra Essex effectively dooming the city of Kiros to a future steeped in fire and chaos. Five years later, Kiros is somehow still standing and the Black Cloaks are still trying to enforce order. Phaedra is still missing… but I have a feeling she’ll turn up eventually. While the first volume wasn’t a bad read, it suffered because key bits of worldbuilding were either kept from the reader or deliberately obscured. It still wove an interesting mystery with quality art, which means the potential is still there for Thompson and McClaren to deliver a second volume that improves upon the first.
The Department of Truth #23: Returning after a long hiatus, the series picks up on the decision of the Department’s director, Lee Harvey Oswald, to go public with its story. Given the man’s history, there’s only one place for him to start with it: On a grassy knoll in Dallas, circa 1963. When this series is on its game, it’s pretty great. When it’s not, it can be a genuine exercise in frustration. I’m worried that this later arc will be the latter as Oswald is doing this to get ahead of Black Hat’s evil plans. Given the way this series has played out so far, my money is on Oswald’s decision being EXACTLY WHAT BLACK HAT WANTS. If it isn’t, I’ll eat my shoe.
Bloodrik: It’s a miniseries about a barbarian who leaves his home and winds up encountering madness, fire, and blood. The description from the solicitation text is the same as from the first solicited issue of the series, which I felt should be read in ALL CAPS for proper emphasis. This promises violent, gory spectacle in the vein of “Conan” and with “Head Lopper” still missing from these solicitations, there’s a space for that kind of thing in my library right now. Better still is that in addition to collecting the three-issue miniseries, we’re also getting three additional short stories in this collection as well.
Griz Grobus: A prying scribe, a sentimental constable, and a mayor reactivate a sleepy town’s priest-bot “Father Stanley.” Meanwhile, in another universe, a hungry wizard accidentally conjures a war god’s spirit into the body of a chicken. Shenanigans naturally ensue in both universes, but how are they connected? Only creator Simon Roy knows for sure and after his work on oddball sci-fi gems like “Habitat” and “Grip of the Kombinant” I think I’m going to like the answers he has.
Our Bones Dust: An AI archaeologist teams up with a feral child to survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth that’s overrun with homicidal cannibals and mechanical menaces in this first solo project from writer/artist Ben Stenbeck. If his name seems familiar, that’s because he’s a longtime contributor to the Mignolaverse, having worked with Mike Mignola on multiple projects there and the best parts of “Baltimore” as well. I’m still wondering why we’re seeing this project coming from Image rather than Dark Horse, but one publisher’s loss is likely to be the other’s gain in this case.
Friday, Book Three: Christmastime is Here Again: Previous volumes of this series from writer Ed Brubaker and artist Marcos Martin arrived in timely fashion in December of 2021 and 2022. For whatever reason, this third (and concluding) volume is coming to us in the Summer of 2024. I’m still glad that it’s coming, and to find out what exactly is going on with all of the supernatural craziness that Book Two introduced.