Image Previews Picks: August 2019
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
The Wicked + The Divine vol. 9: Okay
Yes, Kieron Gillen does seem to find his way up here quite frequently. It was honestly a tough choice this month between this and… well, it probably won’t be too hard to guess what other title I was considering for this spot when you start reading past the break. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that creators Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie have done a great job of setting things up for the finale of this series. Vol. 7 explained lots of things and set up an impressive cliffhanger which hinged not on despair but hope while all the specials in vol. 8 added some extra depth to the overall story. Now we’ve come to the final volume and everything is set up to make the reader feel like we’re about to see Persephone put one over on the (almost) immortal Ananke. I’d have no complaints about seeing that happen, except Gillen is the one who set it up. Nothing he’s written has ever been that straightforward and I’m sure there will be a twist or two (or three, or four…) in this final volume. Nothing that will make me want to use this volume’s title as an indication of its overall quality, I hope.
Spawn #300: I was thinking of summarizing this particular anniversary issue with a succinct “No.” Yet it deserves more than that. “Spawn #300” is a testament to how long a once-mega-popular creator-owned superhero title can last when it’s supported by no one else but the diehards who have been buying it since it came out. If there’s anyone who’s buying this series because they genuinely like it as opposed to doing it out of habit, please let me know. The most notable thing about this particular anniversary issue — aside from the fact that former “Spawn” artist Greg Capullo got (dragged?) Scott Snyder to write him a story for this issue — is that it ties “Cerebus” for the title of longest-running creator-owned comic in North America. It’ll become the longest-running such title next month with only a shadow of the creativity, controversy, and imagination that Dave Sim and Gerhard’s magnum opus managed over the years. I know that Sim’s an awful person based on his personal politics, but I’d still take “Cerebus” and all its warts against “Spawn’s” longevity, which is really all it has going for it.
Coffin Bound #1: From new “Lucifer” writer Dan Watters and artist Dani comes the story of a woman who is determined to leave no trace of her life on this planet. At least, that’s what I’m assuming this series is about with a line like, “if the world won’t have her in it, it can have nothing of her at all,” from the solicitation text. This is all because an unstoppable killer is after protagonist Izzy Tyburn, so best of luck to her. If this sounds up your alley, then go for it. And then let me know if it’s worth checking out because “Coming from the writer of DC’s latest ‘Lucifer’ series” really doesn’t do anything for me.
Pretty Violent #1: Following in the vein of “I Hate Fairyland” is this series with a super-cute aesthetic that trades in ridiculous levels of violence and bad taste. It’s about Gamma Rae who has the strength and dedication to become a superhero. Problem is that she hails from a family notorious for doing them in. This is co-written and illustrated by Derek Hunter, who has a background in licensed titles like “DuckTales” and “Adventure Time,” and co-written by Jason Young, who was credited with “I Hate Fairyland” in the solicitation text. That was an odd credit since that series has always been written and illustrated by Skottie Young. According to the Image website, Jason is credited with helping develop that series. While I was glad to solve that little mystery it only gives me a reason to avoid this series since “I Hate Fairyland” really only has Skottie’s impressive artistic chops to recommend it.
Simon Says: Nazi Hunter vol. 1: An artist who was forced by the Nazis to paint swastikas on train cars in WWII now works as a vigilante in pre-Cold War Europe. Now he’s looking to take out any Nazis who got away with their crimes. I hate Nazis as much as the next guy, but this is still a pretty thin premise to hang a series on. Particularly when its creators, writer Andre Frattino and artist Jesse Lee, don’t come with any other credits besides this graphic novel.
The White Trees #1 (of 2): Chip Zdarsky tries for Image Comics success as a writer again, this time with a fantasy series featuring art from the talented Kris Anka. “The White Trees” is a fantasy series about three warriors who helped end a war and had a falling-out in the process. Now they’ve got to team up again when their children are kidnapped. It’s worth mentioning that this is an oversized two-issue miniseries with each issue being 40 pages for $5. My gut tells me that this is Zdarsky and Anka’s way of testing the water to see if there’s any real appetite for their series. If this two-issue miniseries doesn’t generate any attention then they’ll just move on to their next project without overcommitting resources to it. I mean, why else would they release a two-issue miniseries in this format?
The Walking Dead vol. 32: Rest in Peace: This collects issues 187-192 of the ongoing series. I mention this because apparently something game-changing happens in issue #191. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it sounds like the death of a certain major character might’ve happened in this issue. How major? To the point where you would wonder how the series is going to be able to function without this character going forward. Well, you would if you hadn’t already theorized that the series could survive without this character a few years back. If what I think has happened actually happens in this volume then it’s going to be a difficult read. It won’t be enough to get me to stop reading the series because at this point the direction of “The Walking Dead” is bigger than any member of its cast.
Die #6: I was finally able to put the first volume on my “to buy” list so it’ll be arriving the next time I make a bulk order with the good people at cheapgraphicnovels.com. In the meantime this new fantasy series from Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans starts its next arc, ominously titled “Split the Party.” It’s worth mentioning that the last time I saw those words in the title of a storyline, they were preceded by the word “Don’t” for the fourth volume of “The Order of the Stick.” It’s worth mentioning that the strips which comprised that volume read much better in the collected edition than they did in the online serialization. Just throwing that out there in case anyone needed a reminder of why I do the vast majority of my reading via collected editions.
Rumble #15: Concluding issue of the “Last Knight” storyline and potentially the end of the series itself. Granted, this isn’t mentioned as being a series finale in the solicitations and “Rumble” did come back for a second run of fifteen issues even though the sales of the first didn’t suggest that would happen. So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if this is the end for Rathraq and company or just a pause in their adventures. If it’s the former, then writer John Arcudi and artist David Rubin, along with original series artist James Harren, can at least take pride in delivering one of the most weirdly entertaining titles of the past few years.