Image United #2

December 25, 2009

Image United #2 (Image Comics)
By Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri & Jim Valentino

After a lackluster first issue, I was willing to give this event series one more shot before calling it quits, and I think this is pretty much going to do it. We start things off with Jim Downing, the new Spawn, facing Al Simmons, the original Spawn. Al, apparently mad with power, has decided that he’s sick of being a pawn in the game between Heaven and Hell, and he’s going to just take control of the world himself. So far, so good, but after this we get drawn into another sequence of seemingly random attacks, with villains and other heroes from the six participating creators’ personal stables brought in to fill things out, all while Youngblood sits around and debates whether they should trust Fortress. It doesn’t really amount to much, and the conflicting art styles are far more noticable this month than they were before. Image has announced a spin-off one-shot that’s going to focus on Image heroes outside of the founders’ stable (Invincible, for example), and since I’m far more interested in those characters than the ones we see here, I may pick that up. But as far as the main series goes, I don’t know if I’ll have it in me to bother with issue three.
Rating: 4/10

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

Witchblade #129

Witchblade #126 (Image Comics/Top Cow)
By Ron Marz, Stjepan Sejic

You’ve gotta give Top Cow credit for trying to bring in new readers. They’ve had some really creative initiatives, including making this issue free at select shopes all over the country (while putting out a limited edition “beefed up” version for the regular readers at the standard price). It’s curious, though, that they would choose to do this with part two of their War of the Witchblades storyline. Fortunately, there’s a “previously” page that brings us up to speed and thrusts us right into the growing conflict between the classic Witchblade wielder, Sara Pezzini, and the more recent bearer of half the blade, Danielle Baptiste. The separation of the blade is having quite an effect on Sara, and Danielle is afraid she’s the one who’s going to have to do something about it. This is actually a pretty good issue. The backstory is intriguing, and watching what’s happening to Sara makes for some good character drama. Stjepan Sejic’s artwork is really great — there’s a bright, almost computerized quality to the art that makes me wonder just how often a fill-in artist must be needed to keep this book on schedule. It looks really good, and the story works for me. I’m not saying I’ll start buying this comic every month, but if Top Cow is out to get people to start paying attention, they’ve succeeded.
Rating: 8/10

Monster War TPB

January 15, 2007

Quick Rating: Good

The Top Cow heroes go to war with the most famous monsters of all time.

Writers: Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegowski
Art: Joyce Chin & Victor Ishimura
Colors: Scott Kester
Letters: Troy Peteri
Series Covers: Marc Silvestri, Joseph Michael Linsner, Joyce Chin, Eric and Rick Basaldua
Cover Art: Marc Silvestri (Cover A); Joseph Michael Linsner (Cover B)
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment/Top Cow

Last year, in one of the more innovative crossover concepts I’ve seen in a while, Dynamite Entertainment pieced together a four-issue adventure utilizing properties it calls the “Classic Monsters” (Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Wolf-Men and Mr. Hyde) in a battle with four of Top Cow’s top properties, Magdelena, Tomb Raider, Witchblade and The Darkness. I’m not really a big fan of the Top Cow characters, but the concept intrigued me, so when they put out the collected edition, I decided to take a look.

Written by Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegowski with art by Joyce Chin and Victor Ishimura, the story actually comes up with a pretty organic way to draw all these disparate characters together. Magedlena has a vision that leads her to a crypt where she finds Mr. Hyde – somehow separated from Dr. Jekyll – about to resurrect the inert form of Vlad Tepes, alias Count Dracula. Her pure, sanctified blood turns out to be just the thing to give Drac a quick pick-me-up, and it begins to turn her as well.

She’s rescued by Lara Croft (the Tomb Raider) and her companion, Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jekyll and Croft had encountered each other earlier while both trailing the freed Hyde, who ventured into the Arctic circle to free Frankenstein’s monster. Now, with Magdelena turning, Lara sets out to find the Necrotic Orchid – the one herb that can reverse a vampire’s curse. The Orchid, unfortunately, is guarded by a legion of Wolf-Men.

Meanwhile, Hyde, Dracula and the Monster have made their way to New York for the last element Hyde needs for his plan – a chunk of the Witchblade. Sara Pezzini, bearer of the Witchblade, and her uneasy ally Jackie Estacado (the Darkness) are drawn into battle. The final plot is driven by a fairly logical motivation for the monsters, and showing the four heroes (or anti-hero in the case of the Darkness) in battle is actually quite exciting. The monsters even take it a step further, bringing in a dash of Cthulu at the end.

The artwork actually varies considerably. Not being particularly familiar with either artist’s style, I can’t quite tell who drew which chapters, but I can definitely tell when the changes take place. Some of the chapters are drawn with a lighter touch – more of a penciled, unfinished look, which actually works very well for the story. Other chapters are more finished, heavily inked, which is fine in and of itself, but it makes for a drastic contrast that may be distracting for some readers.

This is a pretty good horror story overall, one that works well especially if you’re a fan of the Top Cow characters. The “Classic Monsters” are fun to read about in their own right. I can’t imagine Dynamite would have worked on this crossover if there wasn’t an intention of using the Monsters elsewhere, but to the best of my knowledge, that hasn’t been done yet. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to set them up in some new horror tales, though, if a proper hero could be found to stand against their evil.

Rating: 7/10