Image United #2

  Literally, all hell seems to be breaking loose in Chicago. Someone or something is causing every two-bit villain in the Image universe to distract its heroes from what is likely to be the true threat. Only one man seems to know what the future holds, if only he can remember what had happened.

 
Like a graphic version of Groundhog Day, this issue reads like endless panels of the same battle over and over again. There’s a sequence of panels where literally the villains and heroes are constantly substituted for one pose down per battle location. While its true events such as Crisis on Infinite Earths had similar layouts, there’s no composition skills, no motion, or energy to the layouts. Instead of bothering with a background, the artists conveniently used a splash of color in the form of an energy bolt, fire, or just in some panels a blank background.

Since taking over as editor in Chief of Image comics, Robert Kirkman successfully removed the old stigma that Image comics had more style than substance to its titles. The Walking Dead, Invincible, and Chew are just a few of its flagship titles that embodied a rich lore of story telling with distinctive original art styles.

The question is, where is the rich story telling? After 2 issues, it seemed lost amidst this gimmick of having the original Image creators pencil their characters in.   After having escaped the Omega Spawn, the current Spawn randomly popped up in the middle of a battle with what looked like Marvel’s the Blob to warn the heroes. Instead of moving the plot forward, the ensuing pages return to more pointless one-panel battle scenes and seemed to end on yet another oncoming senseless battle scene.

It’s amazing how almost a decade after Image fell flat on its face that none of these creators have improved their craft one bit. In issue #1 Liefeld had Shaft shooting arrows with his legs spread apart like he was at a Gynecology clinic getting a vaginal examination. Image also failed to take an opportunity to create some new interest in these characters by changing their status quo thus, taking them in different direction. Only the Shadow Hawk character had some kind of changes instituted by becoming a member of Youngblood.

I couldn’t even get into the back up story that featured more of Liefeld’s variations of Wolverine and Deadpool. Are these characters even marketable after an almost 10 year lay off? They certainly weren’t memorable.

Rating: Borrow it. If you like mindless battles, highly stylized pose downs, this book is amusing but its not worth the $4 an issue.