In the next few months, Image is launching a few new titles in a variety of genres mostly by creators I haven't heard of before. Hellhounds is one of the first of these that caught my attention in the solicitations, and the first issue, while not perfect, certainly has a lot of promise and a lot of fun. Singley and Abraham craft a world that is part Blade Runner and part un-pretentious Paul Verhoeven action flick, with a great sense of humor, a touch of adult sensibility and a little bit of noir atmosphere all thrown together in a science-fiction private eye story.
Hellhounds centers on a pair of private investigators, a rough-looking guy named King and a sexy-looking girl named Shock. Singley's version of a private investigator in the future of Hellhounds is a little different, however. Their "divorce cases" that they take to pay the bills involve taking out the offending party with a sniper rifle. Their police interference comes from cops who will quite willingly shoot them, and the investigators will quite happily shoot back. Corruption, police brutality and other such modern-day scandals are just an understood part of their life. The world that Singley and Abraham have created is dark, but actually kind of fun at the same time, in a 2000 AD/Garth Ennis sort of way. The scene where the police kick a suicide bomber back out into his faithful gave me a laugh, reminding me of the sort of ironic destruction that takes place in films like Robocop or Starship Troopers.
Of course, there is still corruption that can't just be ignored, and corruption that leads to murder and cover-up is at the center of this plot. Singley does a pretty good job of taking the reader on a tour of this world by means of a reasonable structure, as King is brought in by an old friend on the force to investigate irregularities in the corruption of corporate cops. In fact, I was kind of surprised when I did the count and realized that this is only a 22-page comic, because he really makes it feel like more. In the course of these 22 pages, we meet a good half-dozen important characters, get several glimpses of the world these characters inhabit and get two good solid action scenes besides. Some of the scenes feel like they could have used just one more page or a couple more panels, mostly in transitions that are too fast, the comic-book equivalent of sudden screen-wipes, but that quick cut feel is mostly made up for in the amount of story that Singley manages to pack into the book.
If Singley manages to pack a lot of story in, it's partially because Abraham's storytelling is so effective. Abraham is, I'm fairly sure, a new name in the comics game, but his work is of a very professional caliber. It's reminiscent of Cully Hamner, Joe Phillips, Brian Stelfreeze, basically the Gaijin Studios guys, and what that means is that he brings a stylized look to the pages and phenomenal storytelling abilities, especially when it comes to the action sequences. The neon-lit look of the red light district or the police station, not to mention the day-glo civilian friendly cop uniforms, is nice, and a tribute to the skills of colorist David Self, but when the art really gets rocking is when the action is moving. He combines humor and violence in the scene with the protester in the police station, and brings a similar sensibility to the gunfight between King, Shock and the Webtech police. There's a fantastic run and gun battle that lasts about five pages which is probably the high-point of the issue for me, and is one of the better action sequences I've read all year.
Bottom line, Hellhounds brings a great mix of dark humor, fast action and slick style to the party. The first issue comes to a rather abrupt end, but it leaves off on a cliffhanger guaranteed to bring the reader back, and you definitely get your money's worth out of the issue. In reading the book, I thought for a second that I was in the middle of a good old-fashioned double-sized first issue, thanks to the amount of information and action that the creators pour into the book.
