Image Previews Picks: June 2014
We’ve got another late addition to the previous month’s Image’s solicitations after “Stray Bullets” declassified its solicitations. This time it’s a new series called “Trees” from Warren Ellis and artist Jason Howard. Information about it is scarce at the moment, as all we know is that it’s about giant aliens that have landed on Earth and done nothing. They do this nothing by standing completely still which is meant to indicate that they refuse to recognize us or the fact that we’re alive… So yeah, that’s kind of a terrible solicitation and if it wasn’t for the fact that this was coming from Ellis I doubt I’d be inclined to give it a look. The larger issue here is that with the writing publishing something new through Image, I’m reminded about the other title he did through the company with Ben Templesmith years ago. Even though the first volume of “Fell” didn’t end on a cliffhanger, the creators have indicated that there’s still more to the story. We’re just left without any idea when we’re going to see it.
Outcast #1: Robert Kirkman teams with artist Paul Azaceta for a new horror series. Before I start talking about its content, I’d just like to say that as long as “The Walking Dead” is running Kirkman should probably stay away from the horror genre. Sure, you can hype it (and they do so here) as being a new horror title from the writer of that series, but the odds simply aren’t in the title’s favor of it being as good let alone better. “Outcast” is pitched as being about a man who has been plagued with demonic possession throughout his life trying to get some answers about it. Unfortunately he winds up uncovering something that may lead to the end of life on Earth as we know it. This does not sound all that interesting. At least the issue is double-sized and priced like a normal one so there’s a decent value to it right there.
The Wicked + The Divine: Now this is more like it, though not without its own extraneous issues. In the wake of “Young Avengers,” Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie are teaming up to give us a creator-owned superhero title about a world where twelve gods incarnate as humans every ninety years. They live the high life, being hated and loved for two years before passing away. It’s billed as a “superheroes as pop stars” riff on the genre and while that’s not exactly new territory at this point, I’ve yet to see Gillen and McKelvie do anything wrong when they’re working together.
My only issue with the title is the fact that it likely means their third volume of “Phonogram” is going to be pushed back even farther after it was initially delayed to accommodate McKelvie’s work on “Young Avengers.” This bothered me at first, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it this is actually a good thing. Aside from the fact that I’m sure we’ll be getting vol. 3 of “Phonogram” eventually, if “The Wicked + The Divine” hits big then it’ll only mean a bigger profile for the latest volume of their signature title. Which it’ll surely need since I still remember McKelvie talking about not being able to eat if he had done that third volume of “Phonogram” (given the sales for vol. 2) instead of hooking up with Marvel. All things considered, I think he made the right decision there.
Wildfire #1: Los Angeles — GREEN HELLHOLE! That’s the kind of thing I imagine when reading about this new title from Matt Hawkins, writer of “Think Tank” (which is getting a special three-volume slipcase edition this month with extras — 250 copies only) and artist Linda Sejic. We’re told about a scientist who is working on a formula for accelerated plant growth. However, something goes wrong and instead of turning into a distaff “Swamp Thing” it’s the City of Angels that winds up paying the price. There’s something morbidly amusing about this urban, car-driven city being taken over by Mother Nature. I’m interested.
Dead Body Road: Justin Jordan’s revenge story, with art by Matteo Scalera, gets a collected edition. The story sounds about as familiar as you can get — a man’s wife is killed, he goes after the men responsible — but that’s not what I’m buying it for. What I want to see is if the writer of “Luther Strode” has more to his bag of tricks than the two ultra-violent miniseries featuring that character had on display.
Godland vol. 6: Goodbye, Divine! and Peter Panzerfaust vol. 4: The Hunt: Joe Casey and Tom Scioli’s riff on the style of Jack Kirby gets its final volume while Kurtis Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins’ re-imagining of the “Peter Pan” mythos in WWII gets its fourth. What do they have in common? They’re both series that I’ve heard talked up quite a bit (for years in the case of “Godland”) but haven’t got around to buying for one reason or another. I wish I could give you a good explanation as to why I haven’t done so yet. Maybe that’ll change once this convention season starts.
Saga #20: In which, “Something terrible happens.” What could it be? Sales start going down on the monthly issues? Or… aw man, I GOT NOTHIN’! So much for even trying to type this in the first place.
Sex #14: That is… a terrible cover and I’m sorry that I clicked on the image for it just to find out exactly what I’m looking at. No, I’m not going to provide the NSFW link for you here. If you really want to see it then it’s out there on Image’s main site, probably. Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you if you don’t like what you find.
Skullkickers #28: The solicitation text consists of, “Dastardly doubles duel while deranged dwarves dig deep. Don’t deny dis dynamic demented drama.” It would’ve been actually clever if writer Jim Zub had just bit the bullet and gone with “dwhile.” It’s a silent “d” you see. Like Django.
Ten Grand #12: The series wraps up and Joe gets to find out if he’ll ever see Laura again after the war between Heaven and Hell. I liked the first volume well enough and it’s good to see that things are coming to a natural end here much in the way “Midnight Nation” did. Along that line of thinking, I wonder how many more callbacks we’ll see in the second volume to Straczynski’s best comics work.