Sunday, August 3, 2008

My thoughts on "Image United"


Here's a bit of a quick post, but I wrote this up shortly after hearing the Image United announcement at the San Diego Comic Con

Image United

Robert Kirkman recently announced his partnership with Image Comics, a once small company that was started in the early 90’s by once hot artists for Marvel. It was founded by a select group of men, and while I won’t go into that, among them were Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Marc Silvestri. But those are only 3 of the founders.

Image really lead the revolution of independent comics through the 90’s. Paving the way for companies like IDW. While the band broke up as the years went on, no one ever forgot who started it all. Image is mostly known for the creation of Spawn, a popular character made by Todd McFarlane, who is returning to the comic in December.

Other characters and comics where made popular as well though, Youngblood, Witchblade, Savage Dragon, Shadowhawk. For the first time in years, these characters, and their creators, are teaming up again to do a special project called Image United. While Jim Lee is a little busy at DC to help, all the others are returning.

This is how it works; it’s a 6 issue mini-series tying all these comics together. Spawn, Witchblade, Savage Dragon, etc. All these characters and more will meet up again within this comic. However, there is…a twist. Each character will be drawn by its creator. So if you see a page with Spawn talking to Witchblade, Spawn will be drawn by Todd McFarlane and Witchblade will be drawn by Marc Silvestri.

It’s pretty exciting and huge news. But the thing I’m most excited about his seeing Shadowhawk drawn by Jim Valentino. He was a bit of an underrated character compared to Spawn and the others, but I though Shadowhawk was great. Seeing him in regular Image Continuity again is exciting. I especially hope for a throw back to the old days when Spawn and Shadowhawk teamed up.

It sounds like a tough comic to make, after all, these guys all live in different places around the USA. Robert Kirkman confirmed that he will be writing the story, and that pages will be sent around via Fedex. It sounds challenging, but if they can pull this off, it could be the most amazing crossover in years.

My only worry as far as writing is that one, Kirkman already has like…9 comics he’s writing. McFarlane is writing Spawn, with Portacio drawing it. I wouldn’t be too surprised if there where some delays somewhere. Also, Kirkman is an amazing writer, but he’s had his serious low points. Most Notably Ultimate X-men. But I’m hoping this will be more like Invincible than anything else. It’s said to be a very serious dark action-epic, which sounds just about right.

Obviously I’m hyped; I grew up as an Image fanboy and still love their core characters. To get to see these characters together again, along with these creators together, it’s awesome. No word on when Image United will be solicited.

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