Image Comics has long been a bastion of creator-owned work, not surprising since they were built for that purpose. At the recent PR event Image Expo 2013, they showed off their pedigree as a company that, according to their publisher (and writer of Nowhere Men) Ed Stephenson, owns zero creative property beyond their own logo and brand. At the Expo, Image unveiled a handful of new #1’s, and teased us with big news to come.
The best news from the Expo involve updates on upcoming projects from Image’s regular stable of creators, starting with Ed Brubaker. The powerhouse creator of Gotham Central at DC and Fatale for Image is months away from launching Velvet, an 80’s-era spy comic. It’s a Cold War tale that examines what it might be like if a Moneypenny style character (of Bond fame) had a dark past, and was forced, well into her 40’s, to take up the gun and knife again. This a rare and fascinating character perspective: the prospect of not just a female hero with guts, but an older woman at that, struggling with what her body can and can’t do in a time of crisis, and we’re on the edge of our seats to see how it plays out.
Fan favorite Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Casanova) is chiming in with a couple of new projects, one of which we’ll talk about in more detail further below. Fraction’s upcoming work is deeply intriguing, however, as he tackles a tale we all know but rarely understand as well as we should. He’ll be bringing us ODY-C, a cosmic outer-space retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, in which, as Fraction says, “all the guys are girls, and all the girls are guys.” It should be a fascinating double twist on the ancient work, which Fraction says he wrote (when asked) “because I want my daughter to have a hero.”
Jason Aaron and Jason Latour are set to bring us Southern Bastards, a crime thriller set in the Deep South described as “the Untouchables vs. Boss Hogg.” The main antagonist is a local high school football coach, and this mash up of noir and BBQ will certainly tackle some interesting issues around race relations. Meanwhile Kurtis J. Wiebe previewed the motion comic adaptation of his runaway hit Peter Panzerfaust, with voice work by Elijah Wood, Summer Glau and Ron Perlman. Wiebe also revealed that the BBC has optioned the book for a live series. His other upcoming project at Image will be Rat Queens, a story about four women in a fantasy universe who kill monsters to support their freewheeling lifestyle. It was described, tongue in cheek, as “college girls killing monsters,” and the preview pages presented at Image Expo were hilarious.
There are too many other highlights to mention, but there is some intriguing work coming from Captain Marvel scribe Kelly Sue DeConnick, bringing us a female lead Western Pretty Deadly. Amy Reeder (Fool’s Gold, Batwoman) will soon give us the high-flying sci-fi heroine Rocket Girl, and Rick Remender will debut two new books, Black Science with Matteo Scalera, and the 80’s era punk fueled tale of high school assassins Deadly Class, which will be accompanied by Spotify playlists of the music that inspired Remender to write the book. Rest assured we’ll have looks at all of these projects as they hit comic store shelves.
As far as #1’s t
here were four issues released at Image Expo 2013. Matt Fraction gets the ball rolling in his collaboration with legenderay sex-and-scandal artist Howard Chaykin. Their new book is Satellite Sam #1, a tale about 50’s era television and the dark underbelly of Hollywood that was only just then emerging. Satellite Sam is the popular hero of a TV serial, but when the star portraying him, Carlyle White, doesn’t appear on set, no on is prepared to find him dead, least of all his son Michael. Moreover, Michael is not prepared to discover the level of raunchy sexual behavior (relative to the time period) his father has engaged in. This is a 50’s era, Marv Albert story, about a character so much at the heart of TV’s Golden Age that no one wanted to see what was really behind the curtain. Fraction’s writing here has the full speed staccato feel of an Aaron Sorkin episode of The Newsroom or Sports Night. While it’s out of character for Fraction not to inject much humor into these situations (as Sorkin deftly does), the scenes play out with realistic intensity, and that realism bleeds into the rest of the tale. It’s easy (we wish it weren’t) to see why the women in this story aren’t treated with more respect. It’s sad to say, but in that time, they wouldn’t have been, and we appreciate Fraction not kissing our keister by bending time and tradition to appease us. However, this doesn’t have the feel of, say, early Mad Men episodes, where women and minorities are continually subjected to injustice and abuse, simply to remind us how much worse things once were for them. There is valuable realism, too, in Chaykin’s pencils, and his distinctive style and reputation for tackling lurid subject matter make him the perfect artist for this book. Sex and scandal are so much a part of this book, they’re practically written on the spine. This first issue sets the framework for a story that will, hopefully, have a lot more to say about the opinions and culture of the era.
J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) and artist Tom Mandrake (The Specter, Martian Manhunter) take on the superhero genre with their latest book Sidekick #1. The sidekick in question is Flyboy, a young man whose mentor and partner The Red Cowl was gunned down at a victory parade, while sitting right next to Flyboy. The JFK style ending for the Red Cowl is only the beginning of Flyboy’s problems, however, as his partner was also his financial benefactor. As Flyboy’s finances dry up and his super-friends begin turning their backs on him, his behavior spirals out of control. Even before he loses the Red Cowl, Flyboy is depicted shaking down a local prostitute for sexual favors, and wallowing in the shame of his actions. His downward slope gets more slippery by the page, and this is a haunting look at one life taken and another destroyed.
Sheltered #1, also released as a preview issue at Image Expo, is billed as “A Pre-Apocalyptic Tale.” From Ed Brisson (Comeback) and artist Johhnie Christmas (what a great name!) this is the story of a handful of families living at Safe Haven, a compound for survivalists and end-of-the-world conspiracy theorists, complete with bunkers and food stockpiles. These families have been preparing for the worst their whole lives, and their children have had little exposure to the outside world. When a faction of these children become the threat no one ever expected, things turn violent in quite a hurry. The group is led by Lucas, the son of the compound’s leader, but the main character here is another child of the compound, a girl named Victoria. She is as typical a teenager as one can be, growing up in this environment: rebellious, liking to sneak a smoke or a drink with her friend Hailey now and then, Victoria is generally depressed about her surroundings. She’s so real she could be one of my own step-daughters, but she’s set up to face a threat that no young person should have to encounter. If Victoria and her friends are going to make it out of the end of their world, they’ll need a reservoir of inner strength well beyond teenage bravado, and it will be interesting to watch this young woman develop along the way. A fair warning: the book is quite violent, although it feels eerily appropriate right now in the fading light of the gun control debate and escalated instances of mass shootings.
Finally, Joshua Williamson and Goran Sudzuka bring us a preview issue of Ghosted #1. Jackson T. Winters was a master thief until his last job landed him in jail and got his entire crew killed. He’s patiently waiting to die behind bars until femme fatale Anderson Lake breaks him out at the behest of wealthy collector Markus Schrecken. Schrecken wants Winters to steal something rather unusual for him … a ghost! Winters puts together a crew of paranormal experts, including the psychic Edzia Rusnak, a gifted medium who may have her own sinister agenda. The women in this book are not ladies to be trifled with, though Winters seems bound and determined to do so anyway. He’s frankly a reprehensible person, and it’s honestly a little refreshing. He is a criminal, after all, not some sort of Robin Hood. It would be nice if he didn’t prove it to us by being a misogynist, but his deplorable behavior does a great job of prepping the reader for the supernatural comeuppance that Mr. Winters so richly deserves.
