Image United #1

November 28, 2009

Image United #1 (Image Comics)
By Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri & Jim Valentino

The long-awaited collaboration between the remaining six Image founders (or even all seven, if you got the Jim Lee variant cover) finally kicks off. The strange new hero, Fortress, is having visions of himself standing side-by-side with Youngblood, Spawn, Shadowhawk, Witchblade, Cyberforce, and the Savage Dragon, facing some terrible threat. As he tries to figure out what’s happening to him, Youngblood and the Dragon team up to face Spawn’s old sparring partner, Overt-Kill, on the streets of Chicago. To be honest, I wouldn’t have even considered getting this book if it weren’t scripted by Robert Kirkman, producer of most of Image’s best titles these days. Even with his stamp, this first issue was a disappointment. I expected things to be a bit cryptic, a bit of a puzzle as to why, exactly, all this disparate heroes are being drawn together, but the story in general and Fortress himself, as the narrator, are so cryptic that I quickly finding myself losing interest. It doesn’t help that, with the exception of Shadowhawk, none of these are characters I’ve ever had any deep affection for to begin with. On the plus side, the bizarre jam-style of the artwork actually succeeds pretty well. Each of the six creators is doing the artwork for their specific characters, meaning you can see up to all six of them working on one page if all the characters are there. The styles don’t clash as much as one would expect, and while you can certainly tell that the artists change frequently, it doesn’t really hurt the story. The trouble is, there isn’t really enough story here yet to be in danger. If that doesn’t change with issue #2, I doubt I’ll be back for issue #3.
Rating: 5/10

JLA/Cyberforce #1

July 25, 2005

Quick Rating: Surprisingly Good

Can the JLA and Cyberforce combined defeat a mad Ripclaw?

Writer: Joe Kelly
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Norm Rapmund
Colors: David Baron
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Mike Carlin
Cover Art: Mark Silvestri
Publisher: DC Comics/Top Cow Productions

To be frank, I didn’t expect much out of this book. First of all, it concerns Cyberforce, a Top Cow team that’s been out of the spotlight for a long time and that I never knew very much about anyway. Second, the story hinges on a plot point from the little-read (in fact, I didn’t think it ever actually came out) Image Anniversary Hardcover. And third, it was written by Joe Kelly, whose turn on JLA was, to be charitable, disappointing.

So imagine my surprise that this one-shot crossover was actually really good.

To be honest, this is really a Cyberforce story guest-starring the JLA, and in fact seems to exist as a set-up for a new Cyberforce series that’s apparently scheduled for next year. But even taken on those merits, I was rather entertained. Cyberforce is on the move, tracking down their former friend Ripclaw, who has been taken over by the alien technology inside of him. The Justice League heads to Russia to combat rising thread of cyborg corpses, controlled by Ripclaw, and wind up butting heads with the stars. Although there is the obligatory hero/hero fight scene in this issue, it’s actually saved for the end and, for once, Kelly finds a perfectly logical explanation to have such a scene in the issue. In fact, most of the heroes find analogues pretty quickly – Flash and Velocity obviously have common grounds, Wonder Woman finds quick respect for Ballistic, and Cyblade immediately starts flirting with Batman, which is much more entertaining than it sounds.

Mahnke is particularly well-suited for this title, always having had a talent for darker superheros and science fiction monsters, which is what he gets to play with in these pages. He handles both teams quite well, and I’ve got to wonder if this team is planning to stick with Cyberforce when it comes back next year.

The conclusion of this issue not only gives birth to a surprising friendship to the two teams, but also sets up the status quo nicely for the return of Cyberforce to the forefront. It’s just okay for fans of the JLA, but for Cyberforce fans it’s a must-read.

Rating: 8/10