Jeremy Holstein
12-01-2005, 02:22 PM
Finally, after three and a half years of delays, it's here. The 10th (13th?) Anniversary HardCover containing four stories by the remaining Image Comics founders. I'm sure the intention when this book was put together was for it to be a heralded celebration, a return to the early days of Image Comics, a book comic fans would hound their comic-book shop for. New work by Larsen! Silvestri! Valantino! And, most especially, McFarlane, who hadn't put pencil to paper since his story in Spawn #50!
But, as we now know, the book quickly became an Albatross over Image's collective necks. The 10th Anniversary became the 11th, and then the 12th. It became a joke over at Rich's column, and betting pools over at Millarworld opened up pitting the Image HC against the American Flagg collection. Which would ship first?
Well, the Image HC finally shipped and I wandered down to my local comic-shop to pick it up. Or, at least, I would have if it had actually been there.
"That was supposed to ship three years ago," my retailer said. "I cut my orders accordingly."
"To what?" I asked.
"One copy." Which, of course, someone had already purchased.
Not to be deterred I hit two other shops. One hadn't received it. The other had gotten two copies and had both on lay-away. The third shop I hit had one copy on the shelves. I purchased it.
There's no way to look at this as a single comic. These are four individual stories which do not interact in any way. All four include an origin for their respective characters, and most try to include a significant event in their respective characters' lives.
Here's what I thought:
SAVAGE DRAGON (Eric Larsen)
If there's any home run in this book, this is it. The "secret" origin of the Savage Dragon, and boy is it a doozy. Well written and drawn it casts the whole career of the Dragon in a different light, something to be commended. Larsen's art looks great on the glossy paper, and it contains some very memorable images, including the image that started the whole series off back in 1992. I'm not a Dragon fan, but this has me considering picking up a few of the trades. It was that good. Can you tell I enjoyed this one? GRADE: A
SPAWN (Todd McFarlane)
And then we get talky.
Rather than presenting a new comic-story, McFarlane chooses instead to present us with a lengthy prose story with spot illustrations. Here's how it breaks down:
Spawn sits in his alleyway and thinks about his origin. Suddenly, for no discernible reason, Miracleman (of all people) appears and talks to Spawn, telling him he's thinking too narrowly about his past. He needs to give up on being Al Simmons, accept that he's Spawn, and move on. To this end Spawn goes and talks to his wife Wanda, finally telling her goodbye.
A nice little story that's defeated by McFarlane's own prose. His words are just plain clunky. There's a page early on that tries to describe the balance between Heaven and Hell and how it applies to both Spawn and Mother Theresa (who knew she was a pawn of the devil?) that is so convoluted I could feel my iris' glaze over. Odder still is McFarlane's choice to include Miracleman as the being who urges Spawn out of his own self-pity to confront Wanda. This persona could have been anyone in the context of the story, yet McFarlane chooses to use a character whose ownership is under dispute. There's even a little jibe toward Tony Twist in the story, where Spawn says something along the lines "I will never KNEEL to those who would have me TWIST in the wind!" Or something like that.
I used to love McFarlane's art. He was just such a skilled storyteller, with the ability to hit those dynamic images at just the right moment. Here, with his artwork consigned to a static side-bar (every page has a single illustration along the left hand side) his artwork just doesn't have the space to sing. There's some nice imagery, especially a shot of Miracleman striding up to Spawn's trash-throne, but it certainly isn't the triumphant return of Todd to the comic-book pages that many of us had hoped. GRADE: C
CYBERFORCE (Marc Silvestri)
Nice artwork. Dull story. That's really the long and the short of it.
A group of sailors (Russians, I believe) cut through the Ice to reach the site of a doomed ship. It quickly becomes clear that this missing ship was in turn carrying Cyberforce deep into the arctic seeking a cure for a fatal disease. Much of the story is told via a journal that is discovered under the ice, a journal kept by a woman named "Velocity." It outlines Cyberforce's origins and gives a few hints as to some new plot lines before grinding to a halt with the words "To be Continued in JLA/Cyberfoce".
I'm NOT kidding.
The story we waited almost four years for, the book I paid 25 bucks for, ends with a "Go buy an Image/DC Crossover book!"
I like Silvestri's art, but was never a fan of Cyberforce. This story didn't change my opinion. Almost nothing happens in the 27 pages, so Silvestri doesn't have alot of exciting things to draw. Still, what he does draw looks great. On that grounds alone I give it a GRADE: C
SHADOWHAWK (Jim Valentino)
Not sure what to say about this one. Never liked the character, and have never really enjoyed Valentino's superhero work. More a fan of his "Touch of Silver" or "Normalman" pieces than Shadowhawk. This seems a very ordinary superhero story about a boy coming to grips with new powers. We've seen this before, in books like "NOVA" or "POWER PACK". What is different here is that Dad knows his son is a superhero and is trying to talk him out of it. If there's anything that sparked my interest in this piece it was that conflict, not the actual superhero battle that followed. Nothing really wrong with the piece, it has some nice moments, but it didn't excite me either. I give it a GRADE: B. Perfectly serviceable, but nothing to write home about either.
And there you have it. Beyond that we get text pieces from Larry Marder, Eric Larsen, Todd and Marc Silvestri and an Image Comics Timeline that's a very interesting read (especially when they reference who finished their pieces on time and who did not). Oddly Jim Valentino does not contribute a text-piece.
Was it worth the 25 bucks? I loved Eric Larsen's piece, and got a certain enjoyment from Todd's piece, if only for his own audacity in including Miracleman. I'm indifferent to both the Cyberforce and Shadowhawk pieces. I wish I could give this book a stellar review. I wish I could say it crackles with the energy that the Image Books had in their first years. Sadly, outside of Larsen's stellar piece, it does not.
But, as we now know, the book quickly became an Albatross over Image's collective necks. The 10th Anniversary became the 11th, and then the 12th. It became a joke over at Rich's column, and betting pools over at Millarworld opened up pitting the Image HC against the American Flagg collection. Which would ship first?
Well, the Image HC finally shipped and I wandered down to my local comic-shop to pick it up. Or, at least, I would have if it had actually been there.
"That was supposed to ship three years ago," my retailer said. "I cut my orders accordingly."
"To what?" I asked.
"One copy." Which, of course, someone had already purchased.
Not to be deterred I hit two other shops. One hadn't received it. The other had gotten two copies and had both on lay-away. The third shop I hit had one copy on the shelves. I purchased it.
There's no way to look at this as a single comic. These are four individual stories which do not interact in any way. All four include an origin for their respective characters, and most try to include a significant event in their respective characters' lives.
Here's what I thought:
SAVAGE DRAGON (Eric Larsen)
If there's any home run in this book, this is it. The "secret" origin of the Savage Dragon, and boy is it a doozy. Well written and drawn it casts the whole career of the Dragon in a different light, something to be commended. Larsen's art looks great on the glossy paper, and it contains some very memorable images, including the image that started the whole series off back in 1992. I'm not a Dragon fan, but this has me considering picking up a few of the trades. It was that good. Can you tell I enjoyed this one? GRADE: A
SPAWN (Todd McFarlane)
And then we get talky.
Rather than presenting a new comic-story, McFarlane chooses instead to present us with a lengthy prose story with spot illustrations. Here's how it breaks down:
Spawn sits in his alleyway and thinks about his origin. Suddenly, for no discernible reason, Miracleman (of all people) appears and talks to Spawn, telling him he's thinking too narrowly about his past. He needs to give up on being Al Simmons, accept that he's Spawn, and move on. To this end Spawn goes and talks to his wife Wanda, finally telling her goodbye.
A nice little story that's defeated by McFarlane's own prose. His words are just plain clunky. There's a page early on that tries to describe the balance between Heaven and Hell and how it applies to both Spawn and Mother Theresa (who knew she was a pawn of the devil?) that is so convoluted I could feel my iris' glaze over. Odder still is McFarlane's choice to include Miracleman as the being who urges Spawn out of his own self-pity to confront Wanda. This persona could have been anyone in the context of the story, yet McFarlane chooses to use a character whose ownership is under dispute. There's even a little jibe toward Tony Twist in the story, where Spawn says something along the lines "I will never KNEEL to those who would have me TWIST in the wind!" Or something like that.
I used to love McFarlane's art. He was just such a skilled storyteller, with the ability to hit those dynamic images at just the right moment. Here, with his artwork consigned to a static side-bar (every page has a single illustration along the left hand side) his artwork just doesn't have the space to sing. There's some nice imagery, especially a shot of Miracleman striding up to Spawn's trash-throne, but it certainly isn't the triumphant return of Todd to the comic-book pages that many of us had hoped. GRADE: C
CYBERFORCE (Marc Silvestri)
Nice artwork. Dull story. That's really the long and the short of it.
A group of sailors (Russians, I believe) cut through the Ice to reach the site of a doomed ship. It quickly becomes clear that this missing ship was in turn carrying Cyberforce deep into the arctic seeking a cure for a fatal disease. Much of the story is told via a journal that is discovered under the ice, a journal kept by a woman named "Velocity." It outlines Cyberforce's origins and gives a few hints as to some new plot lines before grinding to a halt with the words "To be Continued in JLA/Cyberfoce".
I'm NOT kidding.
The story we waited almost four years for, the book I paid 25 bucks for, ends with a "Go buy an Image/DC Crossover book!"
I like Silvestri's art, but was never a fan of Cyberforce. This story didn't change my opinion. Almost nothing happens in the 27 pages, so Silvestri doesn't have alot of exciting things to draw. Still, what he does draw looks great. On that grounds alone I give it a GRADE: C
SHADOWHAWK (Jim Valentino)
Not sure what to say about this one. Never liked the character, and have never really enjoyed Valentino's superhero work. More a fan of his "Touch of Silver" or "Normalman" pieces than Shadowhawk. This seems a very ordinary superhero story about a boy coming to grips with new powers. We've seen this before, in books like "NOVA" or "POWER PACK". What is different here is that Dad knows his son is a superhero and is trying to talk him out of it. If there's anything that sparked my interest in this piece it was that conflict, not the actual superhero battle that followed. Nothing really wrong with the piece, it has some nice moments, but it didn't excite me either. I give it a GRADE: B. Perfectly serviceable, but nothing to write home about either.
And there you have it. Beyond that we get text pieces from Larry Marder, Eric Larsen, Todd and Marc Silvestri and an Image Comics Timeline that's a very interesting read (especially when they reference who finished their pieces on time and who did not). Oddly Jim Valentino does not contribute a text-piece.
Was it worth the 25 bucks? I loved Eric Larsen's piece, and got a certain enjoyment from Todd's piece, if only for his own audacity in including Miracleman. I'm indifferent to both the Cyberforce and Shadowhawk pieces. I wish I could give this book a stellar review. I wish I could say it crackles with the energy that the Image Books had in their first years. Sadly, outside of Larsen's stellar piece, it does not.