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Underrated: Tokyo Ghost: The Atomic Garden

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet-pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week:  Tokyo Ghost: The Atomic Garden.

I had never heard of Tokyo Ghost: The Atomic Garden. until I saw the cover of the trade at my LCS, which doesn’t really mean much other than sometimes I miss things. Something about the cover caught my attention as I was putting it on the shelf. There was something about a motorcycle rider stuck full of arrows that made me stop and wonder what the hell I was putting on the shelf, so I flipped the book and read a synopsis that was just curious enough to be immediately interesting, saw Rick Remender’s name and immediately purchased the book.

It never made it to the shelf.

The synopsis that helped to hook me in: The Isles of Los Angeles 2089: Humanity is addicted to technology, a population of unemployed leisure seekers blissfully distracted from toxic contamination, who borrow, steal, and kill to buy their next digital fix. Getting a virtual buzz is the only thing left to live for. It’s the biggest industry, the only industry, the drug everyone needs, and gangsters run it all. And who do these gangsters turn to when they need their rule enforced? Constables Led Dent and Debbie Decay. This duo is about to be given a job that will force them out of the familiar squalor of Los Angeles to take down the last tech-less country on Earth: The Garden Nation of Tokyo. You can check out the first issue on Image’s website from this link if you’re curious.

The promise of a story that deals with the dangers of technology wasn’t lost on the person who works with technology every damn day across two jobs and sees the impact of it on another as digital comics are an always present conversation piece at the shop (usually in how they don’t compare, but then that’s to be expected given the people in the conversation are literally buying physical comics at the time).

Remender takes our current obsession with technology to an extreme with Tokyo Ghost, imagining a world that reminds me of the dystopian future of the Matrix with the worst of a Hollywood drug den spread across LA. If Snake Plisken was here, he’d be trying to escape. Through the haze and horror of a tech addicted world, Remender focuses on a Constable, Led Dent, and his tech-free partner Debbie Decay. We see Debbie try to break Led’s all encompassing tech addiction by forcing him to detox… it’s an oddly uncomfortable story that’s all the more powerful by the striking nature of the addiction.

Look, I know you’re reading this on your phone, tablet, laptop or whatever. But this is a book that’ll remind you to go outside in an oddly non-preachy way. It doesn’t hurt that the art is perfectly suited to do what it needs to do; whether in the hell of LA or the relative paradise of Japan… this is a book that you really should be reading.

That the story is good is a byproduct of it’s message – and that’s one we probably all need to listen to (he says as he goes back to surfing the interwebs, where, incidentally, I discovered this is volume one of two, so maybe technology isn’t all bad…).

Join us next week when we look at something else that is, for whatever reason, Underrated.

Underrated: Do A Power Bomb!

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Do A Power Bomb!

For one reason or another, over the past year or so I’ve found myself becoming a fan of professional wrestling again. It’s been more than 25 years since I last consistently watched wrestling, and yet between three or four people in different groups of friends I have being fans, I could feel the pull of curiosity. Needless to say, after the last year of finding my way back into professional wrestling, when Do A Power Bomb! came around I was curious. I’d missed the first issue or two, and so despite the covers drawing me into the comic, I resisted the urge to read them floppy issues until the trade came out.

So what’s it about? I’ve handily copied the blurb for you below.

Lona Steelrose wants to be a pro wrestler, but she’s living under the shadow of her mother, the best to ever do it. Everything changes when a wrestling-obsessed necromancer asks her to join the grandest pro wrestling tournament of all time, which is also the most dangerous! It’s The Wrestler meets Dragonball Z in a tale where the competitors get more than they ever bargained for!

Daniel Warren Johnson created, wrote and illustrated the story, with colours by Mike Spicer and letters by Rus Wooton. As you can probably tell by the blurb and my intro, the comic is about professional wrestling. It’s actually a unique story with how it blends professional wrestling, while acknowledging the scripted and predetermined outcome of each match, with real world consequences of the sport/performance.

As an aside, it’s interesting how given the athleticism required for professional wrestling, it’s not technically a sport as there’s no real winner and loser other than the stories being told. Performance art might be a better description (or sports entertainment, I suppose, which is why that’s a thing). Needless to say, I take umbrage with those claiming wrestling is fake; it’s not fake (those chops and slams hurt), but it is predetermined. Kinda like a movie. Only difference is, these actors/stuntmen/women only get one take in front of a live audience to tell their story and react quickly when something goes wrong.

It’s what goes wrong that Do A Power Bomb! deals with, and the repercussions of that. Without spoiling anything, this story is far deeper than you’re expecting. Far deeper. A comic about professional wrestling can easily be overlooked, and this is a comic with so much more to offer than giants in spandex. It’s an emotional story with some beautiful artwork that captures the frenetic in ring action. You feel the impacts on the mat through the paper.

And that’s why this is underrated.

Unless the comics industry ceases to exist this week, Underrated will return next week.

Underrated: A Random Selection Of TPBs

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: a somewhat random selection of trade paperbacks..

This week I wanted to highlight books that have either already appeared in this column, or haven’t appeared yet (but that I plan to cover in more detail in the future). There’ll be no real order here, but each book will be a jumping on point of some kind into a series that are each absolutely worth reading.

Voracious: Diners Dinosaurs and Dives (Action Lab) The elevator pitch for this series is pretty simple and immediately interesting; time travelling chef hunts dinosaurs. But as catchy as that is, it does a disservice to Markisan Naso and Jason Muhr’s series. Across two miniseries (or two trades), the pair have created a story with more flavours than a tyrannosaur steak; there’s a cop drama, genuinely funny and heart warming moments, a deeper exploration of the mechanics of time travel than you’d necessarily expect and some straight up action sequences. This is easily one of the most exciting comic series I’ve read in the last five year (the final part of the trilogy launches in the next couple of months).

God Country (Image) The concept for this story is pretty unique and straight forward; a man with Alzheimer’s regains his memory when holding a mysterious sentient sword. The only problem is, the sword apparently belongs to some space gods… God Country is one of Donny Cates finest stories, and one that has the potential to hit a lot of us who have experienced a loved one suffering with this horrible disease. There’s also an undertone about discovering who you once were, who you are, and the question of whether a sentient sword is a possession or a free being. Plus, with this being made into a movie in the future, you’ll want to read this sooner than later.

Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior: Risen (Valiant) Hardly surprising I’d include a Valiant book, and Risen is the introductory story to one of Valiant’s finest fourteen issue runs in recent memory. This chapter tells the story of how the Eternal Warrior comes back to life each and every time he dies – another simple concept, but one that weighs heavier and heavier each time you see him fall later in the series.

Sex Criminals (Image) Sometimes you just really need a good crime story. And despite the title, this isn’t about sex criminals, but criminals who have sex and then commit a crime. Because every time they orgasm time freezes so they choose to rob a bank (or take a shit in their bosses office). As you do.

Letter 44: Vol I (Oni Press) I had very little idea what this was about when I picked up the first trade, but quickly discovered that it tells the story of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial beings, and the president who chose to keep their existence a secret (all the while perpetuating wars to give his soldiers combat experience and developing incredible technology to combat the potential threat). Equal parts political intrigue and science fiction story, I’m still not sure whether the tension is higher in space than it is on Earth, but the story is freaking amazing.

Ether (Dark Horse) A tale about a scientist who can travel inter-dimensionally, Ether explores what would happen if said scientist arrived in a world where magic, not science is the rule of law – but what is magic but as-yet unexplained science?

Join us next week when we look at something else that is, for whatever reason, Underrated.

Underrated: Lake Of Fire

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Lake Of Fire

Lake of Fire

It is 1220 AD, and the gears of the Albigensian Crusade grind on. When an alien spacecraft infested with a horde of bloodthirsty predators crash-lands in the remote wilderness of the French Pyrenees, a small band of crusaders and a Cathar heretic are all that stand between God’s Kingdom and Hell on Earth.

When the owner of my LCS not so subtly recommended this to me by putting it in my pull box, I figured that she’s never steered me wrong yet, so why not give it a go? A few hours ago I opened the cover to the five issue collection, unsure of what I’d be getting beyond the notion that it was essentially aliens verses knights, and I didn’t stop reading until the story was done.

I devoured the entire tpb in one sitting and immediately wondered why I hadn’t read about this somewhere before. Why had nobody told me about this before the owner of my LCS told me to read it?

Published by Image, Lake Of Fire was written, coloured and lettered by Nathan Fairbairn with art by Matt Smith (no, not the guy who played Doctor Who), the comic does have a fairly straight forward knights verses aliens feel to it – not that that is a bad thing as it allows the characters, action and art to really pop.

Yes, there are the fairly standard typical characters within the story, but while Fairbairn does tread familiar ground with the characters, the major players all feel as though they have a weight about them. You have the grizzled old warrior, the naive young knights and the dark priest all present and accounted for, and yes they are popular fantasy archetypes, but they’re well written archetypes which goes a long way in my book. I’d rather a well written archetype than a shallow character for the sake of originality.

That being said, rather than having the characters face off against a supernatural threat Fairbairn instead pits them against a horde of alien predators. I’ve always been partial to seeing how our ancestors would fair against an extraterrestrial threat, and the collected edition of Lake Of Fire scratches that itch remarkably well.

Matt Smith‘s art couldn’t be better suited to the past-meets-future story; the action sequences are easy to follow and once the comic reaches the midpoint the atmospheric art really amps up the threatening feel of the story itself in a case where Fairbairn’s colouring melds so well with Smith’s line art that it’s hard to believe that two people were involved in creating the visuals for the story.

It may seem as if I’m being a little harsh on the story for being relatively straight forward, and that’s not my intent. Lake Of Fire is a fairly easy tale to follow from start to finish, but there are a more layers to the characters than you’d initially expect from the story – such as the relationships between some of the characters – and there’s an underlying theme about acceptance and tolerance in a time when neither of these were encouraged or widely practiced.

As far as recommendations from my LCS go, this is one of the more surprising ones; I didn’t expect much more out of this story than to be able to just pop my feet up with a cup of tea and just relax with a half the story before moving on to something else. Instead I ended up finishing the entire trade in one go and immediately start writing this column. Lake Of Fire is a really enjoyable story that surpasses a lot of the comics currently on the racks – and it’s also entirely self contained.

There are a lot of reasons why I wanted to spotlight the comic this week, but chief among them is that I haven’t heard anything about it anywhere – and that’s why it’s Underrated.

That’s all for this week folks. Join us next week when we talk about something else that falls under the Underrated banner in the comic book world.

Underrated: Do A Power Bomb!

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Do A Power Bomb!

For one reason or another, over the past year or so I’ve found myself becoming a fan of professional wrestling again. It’s been more than 25 years since I last consistently watched wrestling, and yet between three or four people in different groups of friends I have being fans, I could feel the pull of curiosity. Needless to say, after the last year of finding my way back into professional wrestling, when Do A Power Bomb! came around I was curious. I’d missed the first issue or two, and so despite the covers drawing me into the comic, I resisted the urge to read them floppy issues until the trade came out.

So what’s it about? I’ve handily copied the blurb for you below.

Lona Steelrose wants to be a pro wrestler, but she’s living under the shadow of her mother, the best to ever do it. Everything changes when a wrestling-obsessed necromancer asks her to join the grandest pro wrestling tournament of all time, which is also the most dangerous! It’s The Wrestler meets Dragonball Z in a tale where the competitors get more than they ever bargained for!

Daniel Warren Johnson created, wrote and illustrated the story, with colours by Mike Spicer and letters by Rus Wooton. As you can probably tell by the blurb and my intro, the comic is about professional wrestling. It’s actually a unique story with how it blends professional wrestling, while acknowledging the scripted and predetermined outcome of each match, with real world consequences of the sport/performance.

As an aside, it’s interesting how given the athleticism required for professional wrestling, it’s not technically a sport as there’s no real winner and loser other than the stories being told. Performance art might be a better description (or sports entertainment, I suppose, which is why that’s a thing). Needless to say, I take umbrage with those claiming wrestling is fake; it’s not fake (those chops and slams hurt), but it is predetermined. Kinda like a movie. Only difference is, these actors/stuntmen/women only get one take in front of a live audience to tell their story and react quickly when something goes wrong.

It’s what goes wrong that Do A Power Bomb! deals with, and the repercussions of that. Without spoiling anything, this story is far deeper than you’re expecting. Far deeper. A comic about professional wrestling can easily be overlooked, and this is a comic with so much more to offer than giants in spandex. It’s an emotional story with some beautiful artwork that captures the frenetic in ring action. You feel the impacts on the mat through the paper.

And that’s why this is underrated.

Unless the comics industry ceases to exist this week, Underrated will return next week.

Underrated: Descender Volume One: Tin Stars

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Descender Volume One: Tin Stars

 

 

Descender_01-1.pngI picked up the first volume of Descender the other day because of a recommendation from the owner, and seeing as how she’s never really steered me wrong before and that it was written by Jeff Lemire I figured I’d give it a try. So what’s the series about?

The synopsis reads;

“Young Robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. Written by award-winning creator, Jeff Lemire, Descender is a rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey. Lemire pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling epic. Created by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Trillium) and Dustin Nguyen’s (Little Gotham) critically acclaimed, bestselling new science fiction series!”

I won’t lie to you, friends, if it hadn’t been my my LCS’ recommendation I would never have read the first volume in this series – and that would have been quite a shame. Y’see even though I frequently say  that science fiction stories aren’t usually my cup of tea, the  more I seem to read the more I seem to enjoy, so either I’m lying or I never really read any good science fiction before form that opinion – either way that’s not the point right now.DESCENDER_1_Letts_17.0.jpg

Upon opening the first six issue volume of Descender – which you can find for $10 at your LCS – you’ll find an art style that won’t appeal to everyone right away (if you’ve read Little Gotham you’ll know what I mean), but allow yourself a couple of pages and you’ll begin to notice that the art style works incredibly well with the story. Indeed the art and the story mirror each other in that just as you notice that there’s a lot more to Dustin Nguyen‘s art than you’ll initially pick up on in those first few pages, you’ll also begin to realize that Lemire’s plot goes a lot deeper than you’d first expect.

Like all good fantasy and science fiction stories, Descender  (or at least the first volume) will have you thinking about the world around you, and how you react to it, without explicitly telling you what Lemire was thinking about when he was writing the series, lending the work a timeless quality.

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t hear more people talking about this series; I’d say it’s one of the best things that Jeff Lemire has written but when the man is as prolific as he is with top notch comics, you’ll forgive me for not giving in to full blown hyperbole. What the first volume  of Descender is, however, is simply fantastic.

That’s all for this week folks. Join us next week when we talk about something else that falls under the Underrated banner in the comic book world.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal comes to Image! #9

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Image Comics’ 12-issue, 30th anniversary anthology will drop another highly collectible installment this December in the upcoming Image! #9. Just in time to curl up and read by light of yule log, Image! #9 will feature a brand new Criminal story from crime noir masterminds Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips titled “Teeg’s Christmas Carol,” the highly anticipated return of Gerry Duggan and John McCrea’s beloved Dead Eyes, as well as many more exciting tales.

Cover art for this issue is by Phillips and will display a cigarette puffing, Santa-hat wearing Teeg.

Image! #9 also includes an all-new short by Bitter Root co-creator Chuck Brown and artist Steven Statz, “Familiar Fears,” as well as the latest chapters of “The Blizzard” by Geoff Johns and Andrea Mutti, “Closer” by Kieron Gillen and Steve Lieber, “Red Stitches” by Brenden Fletcher and Erica Henderson, “Gehenna” by Patrick Kindlon and Maurizio Rosenzweig, “Hack/Slash vs. Image” by Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli, “Billy Dogma” by Dean Haspiel, and “Stupid Fresh Mess” by Skottie Young.

The Image! anthology is a 12-issue series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Image Comics. It treats readers to all-new stories from some of the biggest and best names in comics and is curated by Image Comics’ Publisher Eric Stephenson. The series features a combination of ongoing serials, standalone short stories, and first looks at exciting upcoming projects at Image.

Image! #9 (Diamond Code OCT220159) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, December 28.

Image! #9

James Tynion IV and Fernando Blanco’s W0rldtr33 will debut in Image! #8 this November

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The upcoming issue #8 of the Image! anthology series will provide readers with the debut of an all new series set to launch from Image Comics in Spring 2023. The W0rldtr33 story will kick off the forthcoming ongoing series of the same name.

W0rldtr33 is set to be the next major horror offering from multiple Eisner Award-winning writer James Tynion IV and his Razorblades collaborator Fernando Blanco, along with Eisner Award-winning colorist Jordie Bellaire and Eisner Award-nominated letterer Aditya Bidikar.

This early tease of what’s to come for the series drops readers straight into the action with high-stakes to cultivate an immediate sense of unease.

In 1999, Gabriel, Amanda, Liam, Yoshi, and Darren discovered what they dubbed the Undernet—a secret architecture beneath the internet. They charted their exploration of the Undernet on a private message board called W0rldtr33. Then they lost control. And unleashed unimaginable horrors.

The Image! anthology is a 12 issue series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Image Comics. It treats readers to all-new stories from some of the biggest and best names in comics and is edited by Image Comics’ Publisher Eric Stephenson. The series features a combination of ongoing serials, standalone short stories, and first looks at exciting upcoming new projects at Image.

Image! #8 (Diamond Code SEP220273) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, November 23. W0rldtr33 #1 will hit shelves in Spring 2023.

Underrated: Lake Of Fire

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Lake Of Fire

It is 1220 AD, and the gears of the Albigensian Crusade grind on. When an alien spacecraft infested with a horde of bloodthirsty predators crash-lands in the remote wilderness of the French Pyrenees, a small band of crusaders and a Cathar heretic are all that stand between God’s Kingdom and Hell on Earth.

When the owner of my LCS not so subtly recommended this to me by putting it in my pull box, I figured that she’s never steered me wrong yet, so why not give it a go? A few hours ago I opened the cover to the five issue collection, unsure of what I’d be getting beyond the notion that it was essentially aliens verses knights, and I didn’t stop reading until the story was done.

I devoured the entire tpb in one sitting and immediately wondered why I hadn’t read about this somewhere before. Why had nobody told me about this before the owner of my LCS told me to read it?

Published by Image, Lake Of Fire was written, coloured and lettered by Nathan Fairbairn with art by Matt Smith (no, not the guy who played Doctor Who), the comic does have a fairly straight forward knights verses aliens feel to it – not that that is a bad thing as it allows the characters, action and art to really pop.

Yes, there are the fairly standard typical characters within the story, but while Fairbairn does tread familiar ground with the characters, the major players all feel as though they have a weight about them. You have the grizzled old warrior, the naive young knights and the dark priest all present and accounted for, and yes they are popular fantasy archetypes, but they’re well written archetypes which goes a long way in my book. I’d rather a well written archetype than a shallow character for the sake of originality.

That being said, rather than having the characters face off against a supernatural threat Fairbairn instead pits them against a horde of alien predators. I’ve always been partial to seeing how our ancestors would fair against an extraterrestrial threat, and the collected edition of Lake Of Fire scratches that itch remarkably well.

Matt Smith‘s art couldn’t be better suited to the past-meets-future story; the action sequences are easy to follow and once the comic reaches the midpoint the atmospheric art really amps up the threatening feel of the story itself in a case where Fairbairn’s colouring melds so well with Smith’s line art that it’s hard to believe that two people were involved in creating the visuals for the story.

It may seem as if I’m being a little harsh on the story for being relatively straight forward, and that’s not my intent. Lake Of Fire is a fairly easy tale to follow from start to finish, but there are a more layers to the characters than you’d initially expect from the story – such as the relationships between some of the characters – and there’s an underlying theme about acceptance and tolerance in a time when neither of these were encouraged or widely practiced.

As far as recommendations from my LCS go, this is one of the more surprising ones; I didn’t expect much more out of this story than to be able to just pop my feet up with a cup of tea and just relax with a half the story before moving on to something else. Instead I ended up finishing the entire trade in one go and immediately start writing this column. Lake Of Fire is a really enjoyable story that surpasses a lot of the comics currently on the racks – and it’s also entirely self contained.

There are a lot of reasons why I wanted to spotlight the comic this week, but chief among them is that I haven’t heard anything about it anywhere – and that’s why it’s Underrated.

That’s all for this week folks. Join us next week when we talk about something else that falls under the Underrated banner in the comic book world.

Underrated: Descender Volume One: Tin Stars

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This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Descender Volume One: Tin Stars

I picked up the first volume of Descender the other day because of a recommendation from the owner, and seeing as how she’s never really steered me wrong before and that it was written by Jeff Lemire I figured I’d give it a try. So what’s the series about?

The synopsis reads;

“Young Robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. Written by award-winning creator, Jeff Lemire, Descender is a rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey. Lemire pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling epic. Created by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Trillium) and Dustin Nguyen’s (Little Gotham) critically acclaimed, bestselling new science fiction series!”

DESCENDER_1_Letts_17.0.jpg

I won’t lie to you, friends, if it hadn’t been my my LCS’ recommendation I would never have read the first volume in this series – and that would have been quite a shame. Y’see even though I frequently say  that science fiction stories aren’t usually my cup of tea, the  more I seem to read the more I seem to enjoy, so either I’m lying or I never really read any good science fiction before form that opinion – either way that’s not the point right now.

Upon opening the first six issue volume of Descender – which you can find for $10 at your LCS – you’ll find an art style that won’t appeal to everyone right away (if you’ve read Little Gotham you’ll know what I mean), but allow yourself a couple of pages and you’ll begin to notice that the art style works incredibly well with the story. Indeed the art and the story mirror each other in that just as you notice that there’s a lot more to Dustin Nguyen‘s art than you’ll initially pick up on in those first few pages, you’ll also begin to realize that Lemire’s plot goes a lot deeper than you’d first expect.

Like all good fantasy and science fiction stories, Descender  (or at least the first volume) will have you thinking about the world around you, and how you react to it, without explicitly telling you what Lemire was thinking about when he was writing the series, lending the work a timeless quality.

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t hear more people talking about this series; I’d say it’s one of the best things that Jeff Lemire has written but when the man is as prolific as he is with top notch comics, you’ll forgive me for not giving in to full blown hyperbole. What the first volume  of Descender is, however, is simply fantastic.

 

That’s all for this week folks. Join us next week when we talk about something else that falls under the Underrated banner in the comic book world.

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