It's all about image

I first came across the world of Image comics though an unlikely source: Tomb Raider. Sometime in 1998, during the height of the original game trilogy's popularity, I picked up an issue of Image's Tomb Raider/Witchblade crossover series. Although initially more interested in Lara croft's side of the story, I quickly latched to the character of Sara Pezzini and her symbiotic weapon the witchblade and found myself intrigued by it's powers as well as the universe it inhabited.

The Witchblade series, with it's action-packed storylines and varied and brutal backstory, fired my imagination and I soon found myself hungry for more.

It was then that I found myself moving towards Witchblade's sister series, The Darkness. I have written about The Darkness on this blog before, and what I said then still holds true today: It is by far one of the most interesting comic series ever created. The darkness(and it's wielder Jackie Estacardo) are, to my mind, almost the perfect protagonist, a perfect balance of superhuman power and weakness. The series itself has pulled in some truly great writers over the years and has remained interesting enough to to shrug off it's origins as 1990's pulp fiction.

However, the same cannot be said for the rest of Image comic's catalogue and therein lies my main issue with Image as a whole. Although the premises of many of their characters may be interesting, the majority appear to be stuck in the 90's, and I feel this really bring them down. Although the bigger publishers like Marvel are often seen to be stuck in their ways, they at least have changed their art styles to better reflect the times. Image however, seems to be constantly on the edge of soft core porn and I personally find this detracts from their excellent stories.
I love The Darkness, and I encourage you to read it when you get the chance, but for me, I'll never truly be at home with Image.

Til next time,

PanelHopper