Rogues’ Gallery #1, from Image, starts out with a front cover scene: it’s night on the hill of a big city, and we see a woman facing away from us. She is in battle costume, with two red swords in her hands. 
She’s staring at a wealthy residence, one of those million-dollar homes of the celebrities, an architectural marvel. There are figures inside, visible as silhouettes. There is a trail of red paint or blood leading from the warrior to the home.
Hannah Rose May (with Declan Shalvey also on “story”) is the writer of the issue. And the issue begins at Hyperion City, in a packing district, where a costumed hero, the one we saw on the cover, is doing battle. But then, we realize that this is actually a comic book story someone is reading, so it’s a story-within-a-story within a comic book. Still with me so far?
What follows is a story about comic fans, who are wayyy too obsessed with the adaptation of their favourite comic into a TV series. Is the story good, are they following the canon, how is the acting. And so on. Still with me?
May’s writing is super dense and heavy on dialogue, with the comic critics ranting expounded upon at great length. These comic nerds are completely unfiltered, uncouth, and unhappy. Ignoring their own personal shortcomings and living their fantasies vicariously through their comics and tv programs, they become more and more upset at life as they imagine it. The ultimate in cancel culture!
The artwork works for this story: Justin Mason (“line artist”) with Triona Farrell (“colour artist”) brings heavy shadows, convulsing figures, and big big scenes of action, and counters it with more passive panels of comic nerds sitting and debating. Farrell’s colours work the bandwidth, easily moving from full saturated action drama to flourescent and incandescent lighting in the shops, bedrooms, and living rooms. Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.
There is room for improvement here; our comic nerds are not very likable, like okay perhaps we low-key relate to them but maybe not really, and so on and so forth. And the cover gives away critical plot points, sorry not sorry. But maybe issue one’s heavy heavy groundwork will pay off with more heavy heavy hitting in issue 2.
Image, Rogues’ Gallery #1, $3.99 for 22 pages of content. Mature rating.
Newsdesk