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Image United #1

By Hervé St-Louis
January 18, 2010 - 22:14

The heroes of the Image Universe are confronted with several major threats which forces them to band together and stop an evil too great for any of them to stop. But the threat is unknown to them. Will they be valiant enough to withstand the evil and save their world?

I really wanted to read this series. It turns out that I’ll have to do with a second printing for the time being. When these comics were first published, I was not a fan. I religiously bought every first issue like many readers at the time. Of the bunch, only Spawn was any good. The rest felt like warmed up B Marvel Comics material. So in revisiting this series today, I’m viewing this reunion with an open mind, although I may not be the type of reader to enjoy this. I’m actually rooting for the guys to deliver something special because I don’t want to see their experiment fail. Image Comics has not been the type of publisher to seek out its readers and fight for their support. It always feel like a vanilla press where creators with too much time on their hands and ego go to. The only regular Image Comics I read is Invincible, and sometimes, I ask myself why.



This series is nothing new. Kirkman did not reinvent the wheel here and there is too little shown as to what is the real threat and scope of the menace to really care. The issue serves more as an opportunity to see a bunch of old character together again, instead of wetting my appetite. And this is where it fails the reader and what Image Comics can do for the comic book industry. This series feels more like a parody of bad 1990s comic books than something that pushes the boundaries of storytelling. In just two years, this stuff will be 20 year old and it is still in a state of arrested development. Super hero comics and storytelling has evolved everywhere but at Image Comics projects headed by the founders. Perhaps in their individual series, the characters are thought provoking. If they are, I wish I could hear more about it. This series should have been seen as an opportunity to revamp and reintroduce the characters and their universe to a new generation of readers, while reaching out to people who gave up on Image Comics years ago. It fails at both count. I really want to support this series and wish that I will be amazed. It’s not happening here. I can already hear the musing of the Image Comics founders saying this series is intended to their hardcore fans, not jaded readers like me. I beg to differ. Just like there is no bad character, there is no bad comic book series or universe, in the right hands. If the Image Comics guys could reach into their being and pull out the magic many of us felt years ago, they could achieve something big here and get guys like me aboard. That’s all I wish would happen. I really want them to win and succeed, but I can’t see anything like that from the little that was offered in this issue. I will be back for issue #2, but if nothing has changed, the Image Comics founders will have squandered a magnificent opportunity forever.

About the artwork, only Valentino’s was solidly formed and well composed. To think that these guys were once considered the top of the cream in terms of comic book art. Looking at their stuff is like looking at an old boxer who think he still has in him but doesn’t realize that world has moved pass him.

Rating: 4 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12