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DEFIANCE #1
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Image Comics
Writers: Joey Lee & Douglass D. Barre
Artists: Kanno Kang & Zack Suh
Price: $2.95 US |
I had skipped over Defiance in my run through the Previews catalog, so I'm glad that I got a second chance to recognize it with a preview copy sent by writer Barre. It's always difficult to tell when reading Previews solicitations which new books are going to be good, especially when the talent involved is unfamiliar, but Defiance has the goods, in both writing and art. The notion of stories set in or around Hell have resulted in more than a few Image books that didn't click with me, including Hellcop, Inferno and most of the Spawn line. However, Defiance is different, with a very political vision of
Hell and some flat-out gorgeous painted artwork.
I'm a story guy first, art guy second, so if you want to hook me, you have to have a good story, and Defiance starts off strong. The back and forth between
Peiret and his master Lord Syrus in the beginning is funny, giving each of them
a clear personality and laying out the basics of the conflict pretty quickly.
I'm intrigued by the idea of a demon rising up against Lucifer, and playing out
the conflict on Earth. It's not an idea that has never been done before, but I'm
hard-pressed to think of when it has been done right.
While the writing is good,
it's the artwork that knocked me back on this issue. Mixing gorgeous color,
photo-realism and a surreal approach to backgrounds gives Hell a truly
frightening and otherworldly look without losing the story in all the
atmosphere. Their image of a slightly futuristic New York, bathed in blue and
surrounded by high-tech military, is just as vivid and impressive. The artwork
does sometimes look a little posed, more like frozen moments than panel-to-panel
storytelling, but that is a problem that occurs a lot less than it usually does
with painted or computer-generated artwork, and in general I was drawn into the
story by the believable and yet haunting backgrounds and characters.
I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say that Defiance has been influenced by
the "everything but the kitchen sink" genre approach and balls to the wall
action of Hong Kong films. The mixture of humor and horror, the snappy dialogue
and the terrific fight sequence as the messenger emerges from Hell to find
himself in a fight all remind me of the best of those kind of films, kinetic and
fun.
Defiance strikes me as a "next big thing" book from Image, based if nothing else on its distinctive and beautiful artwork. However, what intrigues me more than that art are the notes in the back indicating that the book is a long-form series of mini-series with a planned ending. It's been a while since someone has started up a long-term series with a planned ending, such as Preacher, Hitman or Transmetropolitan, and right now I have plans to follow Defiance all the way to the end.
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