By summer’s end, Image will be in pretty good shape. A number of exciting new series will be just hitting their stride, and there’s enough brand new stuff to get me excited for the fall. It’s a wonderful collection of creators you love and creators you’re gonna learn to love. Follow me along and I will show you the end of hot Image summer.
As always you can find the full solicitations on the Image comics website.
10. Man of Iron
There was a time when half of all comics published were some take on the question “what if superheroes were real?” (OK, maybe not half, but it sure felt that way). “20th Century Men” doesn’t look to re-write the script on that niche genre, but it’s launching with a fair bit more style than most early 00s comics could muster. Plus, the title shares a name witth a song by The Kinks, which alone implies good taste. I think this one may be a surprise hit!
20TH CENTURY MEN # 1 (OF 6)
WRITER: Deniz Camp
AUGUST 17 / 40 pages / FC/ M / $At the end of the 20th century, superheroes, geniuses, madmen, and activists rush towards WWIII! A Soviet “iron” hero, a superpowered American president, an insane cyborg soldier, an Afghan woman hellbent on building a better life for her people—these strange yet familiar beings collide in a story that mixes history, politics, and comic book mythology into something totally new. Welcome to 20TH CENTURY MEN, where the edges of our reality and fiction touch, overlap…and then explode.
9. Fake Crime
The crime genre is alive at Image, mostly through comics created by guys named “Phillips.” Jacob Phillips is an artist who arrived fully formed. With his soft, painterly style, Phillips draws dreamlike worlds where terrible things happen. In this case? A serial killer who sounds an awful lot like the very real BTK Killer. Am I proud that I’m a sucker for serial killer stories? Can’t say that I am, but I cannot deny loving this comic.
THAT TEXAS BLOOD #16
WRITER: Chris Condon
ARTIST / COVER A: Jacob Phillips
COVER B: Charlie Adlard
AUGUST 03 / 32 pages / FC/ M / $“THE SNOW FALLS ENDLESSLY IN WONDERLAND,” Part Three With questions about the murder swirling, the sheriff’s office discovers a seemingly abandoned vehicle that may be a link to the RQK serial killer.
8. Jesus V Dracula: Dawn of Night
I mostly am obsessed with the premise of this series. Jesus and Dracula struggle for vamp supremacy? Hell yeah! Writers Tim Seeley and Steve Orlando know that they got a weird one here, and this series has all of the lurid creativity you’d expect from these guys. My favorite comic book train wreck.
LOADED BIBLE: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD #6 (OF 6)
WRITER: Tim Seeley, Steve Orlando
ARTIST / COVER B: Giuseppe Cafaro
COVER A: Mirka Andolfo
AUGUST 03 / 32 pages / FC/ M / $Jesus and Dracula fight to the death! When Sistine Centuria is healed by Jesus, she has her moment of redemption…and it will be her last. And while Jesus and his crew seem to have the upper hand, Dracula’s plan is in motion, and it seems impossible to stop.
Find out the final fate of humanity in the dramatic, action-packed conclusion of the cult series!
7. Twice as many bears, twice as few shirts
I own the trade of the first “Shirtless Bear Fighter” series. I also have an action figure of the titular Shirtless Bear Fighter. So you better believe I am grabbing this on day one. Oh right, what’s this one about? Well there’s a guy who doesn’t wear a shirt and fights bears. I think you already know whether or not this is the series for you.
Continued belowSHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER! 2 #1 (OF 7)
WRITER: Jody LeHeup
ARTIST: Nil Vendrell
COVER A: Dave Johnson
COVER B: Chris Brunner
COVER D: Paolo Rivera
AUGUST 17 / 32 pages / FC/ M / $FINALLY! The man, the myth, the legend—SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER RETURNS to the War on Bearror in a wild new action-comedy with higher stakes, new characters, and all the heart and hilarity you expect from series co-creators JODY LEHEUP & NIL VENDRELL! This time, Shirtless’s search for his true origin sets him on a cosmic collision course with the bear god…URSA MAJOR! The battle begins this August with 32 ad-free pages of side-splitting, flapjacked fury! Don’t miss it!
6. Slower than horses
Here’s another series that looks engaging but maybe not all that original. Mashing together spy cliches, an old operative wakes from a coma to discover that politics have marched on without him, and he doesn’t know who is good and who is bad. I got a lot of trust that Declan Shalvey is going to find the path through this foggy hall of mirrors.
OLD DOG #1
WRITER / ARTIST / COVER A: Declan Shalvey
COVER B: Marcos Martín
COVER D: Kevin Nowlan
AUGUST 24 / 24 pages / FC/ / $Jack Lynch was a once-promising CIA operative. On the eve of retirement, looking back at a failed career, he is tasked with one final mission…that goes horribly wrong. He wakes years later to a changed world and deeper changes within him. When a shadow group offers Lynch a second chance at a life of adventure, he’s paired with the last person he could ever imagine. In order to adjust, this old dog will have to learn some new tricks…
OLD DOG is a striking new spy-fi series by DECLAN SHALVEY, the accomplished and innovative creator behind books such as Moon Knight, X-Men Unlimited, INJECTION, and TIME BEFORE TIME.
5. Once you check in…
The comedic sensibilities of Kyle Starks work great for me, so any series he’s attached to is an immediate must read. But now that I’ve had a chance to read this series, I can tell you that it’s nothing like anything else Starks has ever written before. It’s a bit funny, sure, but this is a horror comic through and through. A young couple is trapped on a very haunted farm that they inherited, where nightmares are made manifest. The premise means that every issue can be a new kind of horror story, so don’t expect this series to run out of ideas any time soon.
I HATE THIS PLACE #4
WRITER: Kyle Starks
ARTIST / COVER A / COVER B: Artyom Topilin, Lee Loughridge
AUGUST 24 / 32 pages / FC/ M / $What is a paranormal nexus, and how did Rutherford Ranch become one? Gabby, Trudy, and Dante search for answers, only to discover something else is stalking them.
4. Second verse, same as the first
Oh, so there’s a whole “Massive-Verse” now, huh? I don’t know when this happened. I’ve been following “Radiant Black” and “Radiant Red” but apparently, this is part of a whole new shared universe to explore. While I’ve been critical of the “Radiant” books in the past, I think Kyle Higgins is the real deal, a huge talent. And he’s using his position in comics to elevate all sorts of creators. If nothing else, that’s a great reason to sample each and every massive-verse book, to see if it’s by your new favorite creator.
THE DEAD LUCKY #1
WRITER: Melissa Flores
ARTIST / COVER A: French Carlomagno
COVER B: Federico Sabbatini
COVER C: Eleonora Carlini
COVER D: Tom Whalen
AUGUST 03 / 32 pages / FC/ / $San Francisco is changing. Tech consortium Morrow is building the city of the future with “peacekeeper” robots looming on every corner—and wherever Morrow isn’t, the Salvation gang is.
Bibiana Lopez-Yang is changing too. She came back from Afghanistan with PTSD and the ability to control electrical currents. If she can hold it together, she might be the hero San Francisco needs. But against an enemy this big, it isn’t enough to be good. She’ll have to be lucky.
From debut writer MELISSA FLORES and superstar art team FRENCH CARLOMAGNO and MATTIA IACONO (RADIANT BLACK) comes the newest book in the MASSIVE-VERSE!
3. Seven billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight to go
Charles Soule is really good at committing to a premise, and Ryan Browne is really good at taking the piss out of it. Together, they make excellent comics. In one issue, I already know that I like this series better than “Curse Words,” and I liked “Curse Words” a great deal. Each issue promises to exponentially add to time passed, ratcheting up the chaos every time. In this issue, see what the world looks like eight weeks into the wish-pocalypse.
Continued belowEIGHT BILLION GENIES #4 (OF 8)
WRITER: Charles Soule
ARTIST / COVER A: Ryan Browne
COVER B: Christian Ward
AUGUST 10 / 32 pages / FC/ M / $Welcome to…THE FIRST EIGHT WEEKS! As the world continues to change in the wake of genies appearing to everyone on Earth and offering them a single wish, things are getting intense! Plenty of folks have wished for superpowers, and we all know what happens when you get a bunch of superpowered people together—they fight! How will our heroes survive THE POWERED AGE?
2. Despite my great age
I am a Chrissy Williams fan. I’ve read her poetry, I’ve talked to her about her work editing “The Wicked + The Divine.” But I never really imagined she would take a turn writing comics herself. But from what I know of her stylistic sensibilities, this is pretty much perfect. Old ladies made to battle royale for a world that’s rejected them? That’s a great premise for any comic, much less one written by someone who has such a careful way with words.
GOLDEN RAGE #1 (OF 5)
WRITER: Chrissy Williams
ARTIST: Lauren Knight
COVER B: Tula Lotay
AUGUST 03 / 32 pages / FC/ / $In a world where older women who’ve been deemed useless to society are abandoned on an island, GOLDEN RAGE documents their golden years of making friends, baking dessert, and fighting to the death.
Created by writer CHRISSY WILLIAMS (editor of DIE, THE WICKED + THE DIVINE), artist LAUREN KNIGHT (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and colorist SOFIE DODGSON (BITTER ROOT, Tank Girl), this is the FIRST ISSUE of a brand-new five-issue miniseries where Battle Royale meets The Golden Girls
1. Caught in a bad romance!
We here at Multiversity have very divided feelings about Tom King. Hell, I personally have divided feelings about the guy all by myself. But Elsa Charretier is great, and so is this premise. A lady stuck in a series of romance novels must end the story (find love, live happily) to move on to the next, but will she figure out how to escape? Romance is a genre that a lot of comics fans sneer at, so I hope that the King/Charretier combo is enough to intrigue them. Mashing romance up with sci-fi and horror seems like a great start. I just hope we get the King who wrote “Mister Miracle” and not the King who wrote “Heroes in Crisis.”
LOVE EVERLASTING #1
WRITER: Tom King
ARTIST / COVER A / COVER C: Elsa Charretier
COVER B: Clay Mann
COVER D: Tula Lotay
AUGUST 10 / 24 pages / FC/ / $From superstar award-winning creators TOM KING and ELSA CHARRETIER, comes a new ONGOING SERIES in the tradition of SANDMAN and SAGA. Joan Peterson discovers that she is trapped in an endless, terrifying cycle of “romance”—a problem to be solved, a man to marry—and every time she falls in love she’s torn from her world and thrust into another teary saga. Her bloody journey to freedom and revelation starts in this breathtaking, groundbreaking FIRST ISSUE.
