(SPOILERS) Ghosted starts out with a pretty violent image: rape in a prison cell. The book wants desperately to grab your attention as quickly as possible and to hold it as long as possible.

It starts with a day in the life of Jackson T. Winters, an inmate in an unnamed and horribly violent prison. We have panels of murder and riots and beatings, all of which Winters seems to skate over, taking no notice. Joshua Williamson’s caption panels in these sequences are ironic and relaxed, trying to heighten how cool Jackson Winters seems. Soon enough he’s busted out of prison by the military version of the femme fatale (guns and bombs and skin tight leather suits), only to discover than a very wealthy old man wants Winters to steal a ghost for his collection. Then we tumble into Winters handpicking his team, which consists of sleight of hand magicians, pickpockets, mediums, and ghost hunters.

That’s pretty standard for a caper story, and Ghosted #1 doesn’t really do much to distinguish itself. Sure, it has the supernatural twist, but that hasn’t really come into play yet. As far as this issue goes, it’s a middling, expected story that tries too hard to make its protagonist cool. I will say, though, that the cliff hanger at the end did make me want to read the next issue: apparently there’s a mole/enemy agent in Winters’ group, and she can see the dead. So that’s pretty fun.

The art is also fairly nondescript. The facial and character details are really good on the close-ups, but the backgrounds lack imagination. I will point out pages 6 and 7, in which Goran Sudzuka’s art and Miroslav Mrva’s colors come together perfectly to produce an almost perfect scene. Other than that, I think we’ll really have to wait and see when it comes to the art. There are moments of greatness, but overall it’s just sort of uninteresting. Plus, the colors are usually pretty flat and make the pages run together, drawing even more focus from the artwork.

Ghosted could become a really great series, but all I see right now are the kernels of better ideas.

Story: Joshua Williamson Art: Goran Sudzuka
Story: 6 Art: 6 Overall: 6 Recommendation: Read

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with FREE copies for review.