Image Comics releases an action and adventure filled with a supernatural graphic novel about a psychiatrist who has a double life, life as a psychiatrist, and life as a serial killer in Flawed Volume 1. Unlike any other vigilante comics that you’ve read like Batman, Spawn, or The Punisher, this one goes on a bloody path in a city where corruption and brutality have conquered all over the streets. More importantly, what the main character is doing with her life is listening to their client’s problems until she goes out at night and exterminates those who made her clients suffer. You could say that this is the ultra-violent version of Batman because all you can see on the following pages are all bloodshed. The comic is written by Chuck Brown and illustrated by Prenzy. Chuck is the Eisner and Ringo award-winning writer who wrote such books as The Punisher and Black Panther for Marvel, Rotten Apple for Dark Horse Comics, and Bitter Root for Image Comics. He has a long history of self-publishing for more than 18 years and has also written comics for some webcomic pages such as Webtoon.
The front cover of the comic is somewhat promising, it shows the main character is geared up with armor with some feathered mantle on her shoulder. And the way that she wears that mask, almost reminded me of Scorpion from Mortal Kombat because she dresses in yellow. Other than that, the mantle is actually made out of some falcon feathers which seemed that she would be a decent vigilante. The bottom of the cover shows the face of the demon where the blood is splattered on the floor, however, it almost looked like Malebolgia from Spawn because you’re it’s more likely that this comic is all about the supernatural in the modern city. Plus there are some other comics that focused on that, like vampires, demons, and such. One thing that this comic surprise me is the plot. At the back of the cover, there’s a quotation written by ComicBook.com that says “Brings forward a brutal tale of murder and revenge that leans into psychological warfare in a refreshing way.” I guess from my perspective is that this comic is like Batman, but somehow it turns into something else out of the ordinary.
So the plot is not that much to talk about other than the fact that the main character is doing her job to help the clients to solve their problems, but then she gears up to hunt down those who threatened one of her clients at night. The comic is an ultra-violent never-ending action where she murders every gangster from every other panel of the page. But there is something in the story that caught my interest, the plot is that there is some guy who called him “Skinwalker” who just ripped off the skin of a human being, depending on what color of the skin. However, a detective just informed about that Skinwalker is targeting adolescent black females, right on that scene where a white male in his late 50s died while being hanged upside down, yes it’s really hard to explain without the fact that this comic is weird.
There’s this part when some gangster tells the story origin of the Skinwalker, and that story is so fucked up. It goes when the natives are going out hunting looking for food to feed the villagers, but then one of them was being eaten by some man-eating bugs which is impossible to kill. And then some warriors are attempting to use their bodies as weapons, as in sharpening their teeth just to eat them. But instead of killing them, they merged them into one. Again it’s really hard to explain how these humans are mutated with an unkillable bug, which goes off the legend of the skinwalker.
However, in the present, someone whose name is Higgs just turned into a demon that has the ability to scar someone through the skin which could only mean that this guy is Skinwalker. And that creature poses a threat to the city if that thing keeps skinning off some people. So everyone, even a police detective, and some assassins goes out to stop that demon. And at the end of the comic, her assistant kept some of the creature heads in a laboratory which holds a collection of some of the creatures that she killed by cutting their heads off. It’s quite ironic and probably would want to keep them for research or something, but to me getting a demon’s head is like holding a victory trophy after winning a war.
The story is quite genuine because it shows that a psychiatrist goes out to solve everyone’s mental health problems during the day, and then she goes out to kill her enemies as a vigilante. However, at the end of the comic, there’s this summary where an English professor and a curator of history at the Museum at Michigan State University explains the confusing connection between superheroes and mental health. And it talks about the theories of what makes superheroes and mental health important to the readers before they made this comic in the first place. Since I already talked about Prenzy’s art style in my last review of “On The Stump” in 2020 if I remember correctly. There’s not much to talk about the art, except there are one of these parts where the bugs are eating the human flesh alive, the demon designs like the one in the last few pages of the comic, and how one of the characters was skinned out alive. It’s too random to see this through, but I cannot get my mind off that scene where the human and bugs bite at each other and formed into a monster, that is something that I have never seen before. However, it still has the most epic scenes of the character fighting against each other just like “On the Stump.” The story is quite interesting the fact that you’re a fan of Kill Bill movies, this one doesn’t fuck around with a psychiatrist and a vigilante around the city. If you ever want to read another epic comic about revenge then this is for you.
Newsdesk