The Imaginaries #3

August 6, 2005

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Lost and Found Part Two

Is Superhero G a hero from the past?

Writers: Mike S. Miller & Ben Avery
Pencils: Greg Titus
Colors: Salvatore Aiala
Letters: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Cover Art: Mike S. Miller
Publisher: Image Comics/Alias Enterprises

After something of a wait, the third issue of Mike S. Miller’s The Imaginaries hits. When last we left Superhero G, the newest citizen of the Imagined Nation, he was standing up for an abused faceless denizen of this strange world, coming under assault by a mob of the ruling caste – militant teddy bears. It’s kind of silly, I know, but in a world populated by discarded imaginary friends, the whole thing makes perfect sense.

As he switches back to his “secret identity” and makes his way among the other residents of the city, we learn that his appearance in the city may not be entirely unexpected. Some of the long-time residents of the Nation remember another superhero, another one clad in red, white and blue, another one who bore a “G” on his chest. Could Superhero G really be the second coming of a legend?

I was a little surprised to see Millar introduce the messiah aspect of the story – it’s not somewhere I really expected this title to go, but so far it seems to be working quite well. I doubt that storyline will be resolved one way or another before the end of this initial miniseries, but we all know there will be more stories from Alias in the coming months. Ultimately there’s only two possible resolutions – either he is the “chosen one” or he isn’t – but either of those can be a good story if played properly.

The story in this issue is just as sharp as the last two, but the artwork isn’t. It looks a bit too compressed at points, like the panels are being smooshed. At other points, it’s the opposite problem – panels that look stretched out. The design and look of the city and characters is still inventive as ever, it’s just the execution that seems off. There’s no inker credited this issue and I wonder if that might be part of the problem – Miller may have needed somebody to go over this with a talented pen and give it more depth.

I’m quite enjoying this series – Miller is one of the most creative people in comics today and I love all of the different corners of Alias Enterprises. This issue is no different, it’s just a little weak in the art department.

Rating: 7/10

The Imaginaries (2005 Series) #2

June 6, 2005

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Lost and Found Part Two

Superhero G learns the ropes of the Imagined Nation.

Writers: Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller
Pencils: Mike S. Miller & Greg Titus
Colors: Lynx Studios & Greg Titus
Letters: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Cover Art: Mike S. Miller & Greg Titus
Publisher: Image Comics/Alias Productions

The second issue in, I continue to find mmyself very impressed with Mike S. Miller’s newest Alias production, The Imaginaries. In the first issue we met Superhero G, the imaginary friend of a boy who outgrows him when his parents are divorced. G finds out the hard way what happens to discarded imaginary friends – they are cast to the Imagined Nation, a walled city where teddy bears rule with an iron fist and anyone who doesn’t comply is cast out into the sandy waste beyond the city, where they will be forgotten and eventually fade into nothing.

This issue we see more of the city, including the hierarchy of the imaginaries that exist there. The less well-thought out an imaginary friend is, the greater the likelihood that they will be considered a second-class citizen, something that doesn’t sit well with Superhero G at all. What’s more, we also get an explanation for why the teddy bears run the show. It seems like a goofy concept at first, something that the creator just conjured up because it’s such a bizarre idea, but as it turns out there’s actually a very good reason for the bears to hold the reigns of power.

We also see how the imaginaries cope with the world that cast them out through a kiosk that allows them to look into the “real” world at the humans that created, then abandoned them. As you can imagine, this is very much a double-edged sword, and creates great pain in some of the imaginaries even as they are unable to stop watching.

Superhero G is our star, our viewpoint character, but the book is less about him than it is about the world that Miller has created. The real drawing point here is seeing the different, bizarre creatures inhabiting this comic book, seeing how that world was pieced together from pieces of our own, and seeing how those two worlds relate to each other.

Miller and Titus do a nice tag-team job on the artwork, with one handling the real world and one handling the imagined nation. They’ve got great visuals on the various creations, especially the “Nazi Teddies.” The unusual juxtaposition of those elements is one of the things that really sells the comic book.

I’m enjoying it. I’m a fan. Can’t wait to see where it goes next.

Rating: 8/10

The Imaginaries (2005 Series) #1

April 16, 2005

Quick Rating: Great
Title: Lost and Found Part One

Where does an imaginary friend go when a child no longer needs him?

Writers: Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller
Pencils: Mike S. Miller & Greg Titus
Colors: Lynx Studio & Greg Titus
Letters: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Cover Art: Mike S. Miller (Cover A); Greg Titus (Cover B)
Publisher: Image Comics/Alias Enterprises/DB Pro

A few weeks ago I reviewed another Mike Miller/Alias Enterprises comic, Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker, which was a great combination of classic children’s books. With this second Alias production, this new studio is really poising itself to be a leader in all-ages comic books. This is one of the best new comics I have read in a very long time, and like Lullaby, it’s one that adults can read, appreciate, and then share with their children.

To cope with his parents’ marital troubles, a young boy named Tanner takes up the adventures of Superhero G, a character his father dreamt about as a child. When he grows older, though, and life gets harder, Tanner abandons the hero. Superhero G then finds himself in another world, stranded on the outskirts of a great walled city in the midst of an unforgiving desert. He has been sent to the Imagined Nation, home of imaginary friends that children no longer dream about, and unless he finds a way into the city, he will soon be no more.

I am a sucker, I will admit, for stories about the power of imagination, and this is one of the best such stories I’ve come across. While the story is about a child growing older, for a younger child it will reinforce the power of their own creations, make them more real rather than less.

Miller and Titus do an equally strong job with the artwork. The “real” world looks like the sort of art style you’d find in a strong superhero comic, which is interesting since the superhero doesn’t show up at all. We also get a few pages in a child’s crayon style before moving on to the “imaginary” world, where the art makes a minor shift. While the shift isn’t so drastic as to be jarring, things do become a little more cartoonish, and not just because we’re faced with living snowmen and talking bunny rabbits. Body structures become more exaggerated, faces elongated, and we feel like we’ve fallen into a Saturday morning cartoon or – more appropriately – the imagination of a particularly vivid child.

Is it fair to say that, with just one issue, I’m in love with this book? I think so. This is the kind of stuff that I just eat up, and if you’ve got kids that you want to bring into the world of comics, Alias Enterprises now has not one, but two fantastic entry-level comic books. Check this out.

Rating: 9/10