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By Sean McQuaid Image, Image everywhere and not a plot to spare. ...

Okay, I’m being literarily allusive and dismissively catty in the same breath, but I just couldn’t resist that opening sentence. This week Ill be getting my recent Image Comics binge out of my system by examining lots o' them there Image books. As a well-known Image-basher I should begin by admitting that some of this stuff is definitely worth reading, like. . .

The Savage Dragon

Wrilten and drawn by series creator Erik Larsen, The Savage Dragon is an ongo- ing series whose title character is a super- strong, green-skinned, fin-headed amnesiac who joins the Chicago police to battle every- thing from organized crime to renegade lob- ster-men. Weird-looking though he may be, the Dragon is refreshingly upbeat, no-non- sense and down-to-carth-- a very likable and believable character (as well as one of the very few super-heroes to actually join a police force). The supporting cast are similarly accessible and well-developed.

Larsen’s drawing is very exaggerative, cartoony stuff, and his plots aren’t always the most sophisticated either, but who cares? He’s obviously having fun, and it’s infectious. Things to watch for (both here and in the Dragon’s spin-off title, Freak Force) include the shame- less (but hilarious) homages to other comics (i.e. Mighty Man, Super-Patriot, She-Dragon, and so on). Sour notes include generous help- ings of those perpetual Image standards sex and violence, but the violence is generally pretty cartoony and the sex-- well, you might not want your kid brother reading it, but it doesn’t outdo NYPD Blue (and Dragon’s su- per-heroic girlfriend, Rapture, isn’t too hard on the eyes if you don’t mind her being objectified). Savage Dragon isn’t the intellec- tual comics find of 1995, but it is more ener- getic and fun than a lot of books on the stands- -and hey, where else are you gonna find acomic book with bad guys like *‘Jimbo, Da Mighty

Lobster’’? Spawn is an ongoing serics created by

comic book mega-star Todd McFarlane (Cana- dian, eh!). I have mixed feclings about the Toddster: while his style is unique in its char- acter modelling, design sense and cinematic pacing (things he developed to many readers’ pleasure in the late, lamented /nfinity Inc.), the stardom he achieved as Spider-Man’stop artist led him down the path of egotistical sclf- indulgence. This peaked with his stint as writer and artist on Spider-Afan, one of the biggest financial successes and creative flops

of all time. Few contemporary mainstream comics match the McFarlane Spider-Man sto- ries for sheer god-awfulness in terms of story- telling.

That being said, I was understandably sceptical when McFarlane resurfaced as the writer-artist of Image’s Spawn; however, McFarlane seems a born-again writer (though

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hp CN ER : distic disrespect for life and limb. Spawn isan interesting character, but certainly no heroic ideal.

The Maxx, on the other hand, defies definition. I’ve read four issues of this series plotted and drawn by Maxx creator Sam Kieth (with scripts by Bill Loebs), and I'll be darned ifI know precisely what to make ofit. It’s one

still no Neil Gaiman). The story of Spawn, a decomposed but supernaturally powerful walk- ing dead man who finds acceptance as a cham- pion (and member) of the homeless, is consid- erably complex (a far cry from McFarlane’s minimalist Spidey plots): twists and subplots abound, including Spawn’s doomed infatuation with his wife (remarried to his best friend following Spawn’s *‘death’’), and Spawn’s con- flicts with the mob, the cops, the government, and even the rival forces of heaven and hell(!). The storyline is sometimes cluttered and per- petually meandering but has some depth and direction, not to mention some interesting sup- porting characters: the despicable demon Vio- lator, the ruthless hellspawn-hunter Angela, monstrous mob boss Tony Twist, and police detectives Sam Burke and ‘‘Twitch’’ Williams (the Ren and Stimpy of New York’s Finest, as a co-worker referred to them, though Burke seems derived from Batman foi} Harvey Bullock). McFarlane is basically an okay writer now (though contrived or attenuated scripting is still a problem for him), and the series has a very inventive sense of visual design.

The least satisfactory element is that violence thing again: like most Image books, Spawn relies heavily on gratuitous violence. Since the title character is portrayed as a hero (Image’s most popular one), it’s disturbing to see his often cavalicr, sometimes gleefully sa-

of the most surreal things on the stands in terms of both art and story; always weird, often wildly imaginative, sometimes unpalat- able, but seldom devoid of the inscrutable intelligence behind it. It all revolves around young social worker Julie Winters and her relationship witha hunch—backed, big-footed, bucktooth-masked outcast freak (and some- time hero) called the Maxx. Both Maxx and Julie are prone to losing themselves in fantasy worlds, and an ongoing question in the series is how much of what Julie experiences is real. The inventive eccentricity of Maxx and Julie’s fantasy ‘“Outback’’ world is something in itself, but there’s also some fascinating (and sometimes disturbing) character development as Kieth explores the tangled skeins of Julie’s personality and how Maxx fits into it. A tale of love, death, fantasy, escapism, lost inno- cenceandemerging self-awareness. The Mfaxx is an interesting read if you don’t mind being confused. It’s not the best comic out there by any means, but it sure as heck is unique. Which brings us to something much less unique: Youngblood and its companion title, Team Youngblood. These two ongoing series and most of their featured characters are the creations of comic book idol Rob Liefeld. Well, I’ve always considered him something of a false idol, but that’s just me. Can millions of drooling kiddies be wrong?

Arts and Entertainment

Probably, but I digress.

Okay, Youngblood and Team Youngblood are basically two branches of the same organization, a government-sponsored team of super-heroes. As government stooges they don’t have the problems with the authori- tics that most heroes have, but, well, they’re government stooges. On the bright side, this eliminates the need for civilian occupations or even secret identities, and the team members are media celebrities. v |

The fame and power politics are kinda interesting. by times (i.e. Badrock’s media- courting, Riptide’s nude modelling offer, Shaft’s insecurity, and the agenda of slimy Youngblood director Graves), but like all Liefeld stuff it’s usually pretty simplistic. Dia- logue is simplistic and often contrived, storylines are simplistic, and even his drawing is nothing to write home about. It surprised me to see amateurish screw-ups in basic perspec- tive rules as I scanned some pages. Less shocking were the wide-open spaces and scratchy lines of his sadly unimaginative, in- your-face layouts, as well as the grimacing countenances, inane accessories, grotesque bodsand overdramatic posturing ofhis figures. Hejust can’t draw anybody who looks remotely natural, it seems. Team Youngblood pencillet Chap Yaep is typical Image, but much more refined than Liefeld. Yaep’s stuff is generally more substantial than Rob’s, though no more naturalistic in its character renderings.

Grumbling aside, this beats Liefeld’s X-Force pablum (which easily surpassed even McFarlane’s Spider-Man in terms of sheer aesthetic bankruptcy). There is some interre- lation among the characters (the Masada/Rip- tide and Cougar/Photon friendships come to mind as interesting, while Die Hard and his relationship with Vogue both have largely untapped story potential). Some of the charac- ters, like Badrock, are at least likable, and Team Youngblood’s Sentinel is actually a very complex and engaging individual. Others, like Shaft, come across as typical Liefeld cyphers of rip-offs of old Marvel characters (Knight Sa- bre= Gambit, Col. Bravo= Cable. and on and on).

Youngblood and Team Youngblood ar¢

a fairly solid (albeit not particularly original) super-hero team concept, but the execution is lacking. Unlike McFarlane, Liefeld remains an immature talent: big panels, big guns, big biceps, big breasts, big deal. Plus, the ubiqui- tous cavalier attitude towards lethal violencé leaves a bad taste in my mouth (I worry abou! kids ingesting this stuff in large quantities. which they do). Moral judgements aside, the Youngblood books are unremarkable aestheti¢ fluff.

October 11, 1994)