Image Previews Picks: June 2019
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Heavy Liquid
There are a few reasons I’m completely in the tank for any major project from Paul Pope. This is one of them. “Heavy Liquid” was originally a five-issue prestige format miniseries from DC/Vertigo in the late 90’s. It’s about a man known only as S who is hooked on the title substance. While this Heavy Liquid is a helluva drug, it can also function as an artistic medium. Something his ex-girlfriend was exceptionally skilled at working in. Which is why S has been recruited to find his ex by a very wealthy benefactor who has promised him enough money to wipe out all of his debts. Debts which are being actively and murderously collected upon by some masked gangsters.
Pope has a kinetic style that moves unlike any other artist’s in comics. It’s easy to see here from the effortlessly breakneck action scenes he choreographs. What really makes this worthy of a place in your library is that the story actually hangs together pretty well too. Some of it may be a little minimalist and confusing, but Pope spins a pretty engaging tale about art and addiction to go along with his incredible art. While this new edition doesn’t promise any extras that will make me replace the one I already own, anyone who doesn’t already own this should absolutely pick it up.
Criminal #5: Kicking off a new storyline called “The Summer of ‘88” which promises to be one of the most sordid and brutal storylines yet in this title’s history. What makes me say that? Because the solicitation text tells me that this storyline will be about the last days of Teeg Lawless. Given everything that we’ve seen and heard of the character in “Criminal” I can’t imagine him coming to anything but a sordid and brutal end. Oh, and the issue itself also tells us that there’s a private investigator/skiptracer who comes to town looking for a dangerous woman. Only in “Criminal” would something like that be a sideshow to the real action.
Hardcore vol. 1: Imagine if anyone could be turned into a human drone piloted by a soldier to get to targets that normal soldiers can’t reach. Sounds kind of frightening, right? Now imagine that creators Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri want you to feel sympathy for one of the soldiers who’s doing the piloting. This is after he’s stranded in a body that has 72 hours to live and has to figure out who has hijacked the program. Andy Diggle writes and Alessandro Vitti illustrates, and that’s a pretty solid creative team right there. Mind you, this is after I’ve overlooked the last two disappointing volumes of “Thief of Thieves” that Diggle gave us. While the writer has shown us that he’s great with action-oriented stories, the premise for this one seems like it would only work if the reader actively tries not to think about the deeper implications of the technology at its core.
Monstress, Book One HC: How can you tell when an Image title has really made it? When it gets a hardcover collection of multiple volumes. What’s more telling is that this hardcover collection of “Monstress” is going the “Saga” route in that it collects three volumes of the series as opposed to the usual two that these kind of things have. Time to start placing your bets on whether this series will end with vol. 6, 9, 12 (my money’s on this), 15, or higher!
Murder Falcon: After Daniel Warren Johnson’s “Extremity” offered up some great art in service of a predictable and uninspiring story, I was hoping he’d find some new inspiration for his next series. He did exactly that as “Murder Falcon” is about a guy in a failing metal band who finds out that the music he plays has the ability to turn the title character into a kung-fu frenzy of destruction! In short, this series is all about how metal will save the world, which is a concept that I can really get behind.
The Ride: Burning Desire #1 (of 5): While this miniseries is billed as “Celebrating 15 Years of ‘The Ride,’” it’s hard to get excited about something like that given how infrequently this anthology series comes around. This time, however, things look kind of promising. That’s because it’s coming from the “Plastic” creative team of Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard (with some guy named Adam Hughes handling the back-up stories) are giving us the story of an ex-cop, ex-felon, current strip club bouncer looking to settle some old scores. “Plastic,” if you’ll recall, was the twistedly funny story of a serial killer who got back in the game after his precious blow-up-doll girlfriend was stolen by some bad people. So yeah, I’m interested to see what Wagner and Hillyard are going to get up to here.
The Wicked + The Divine #45: Final issue. In which we get plenty of rainbows, sunshine, and unicorns as everyone gets the happiest of endings! Well, everyone who’s still alive by the final page, that is.