Some 17 years in the making, the founding members of Image, sans Jim Lee, have teamed up for the biggest crossover in the company’s history. Image United, a six issue mini-series, sees characters reunited in an effort to save the Earth. While many of the original launch titles have fallen by the wayside, there exists some nostalgia for the over the top characters of early ’90s Image. Now granted, many of the characters would probably fail in today’s market, but the chance to see the drawn by their original creators and packaged into one big story is too good to pass up. Or is it? Could it be too much?
The mini-series has Marc Silvestri back on CyberForce and Witchblade; Todd McFarlane on Spawn; Eric Larsen handling the Savage Dragon; Rob Liefeld tackling Youngblood; Jim Valentino on ShadowHawk and Whilce Portacio taking on a new character created specifically for the series. All that’s missing is Jim Lee and his group, but he’s graced fans with an alternate cover for the first issue. I guess that’s what happens when you sell out your company, you loose control of it. Now that they’ve got the artists figured out, it was up to new Image partner Robert Kirkman to write the story.
Kirkman, who has a trio of series currently going on at Image, is no stranger to over the top type heroes. He’s dealing with a couple in Invincible and Haunt every month. So you’d think he’d be the perfect fit to the group. Well unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as his work on the Walking Dead. It’s your typical villains wrecking havoc and needed superheroes to team up to stop them. Everything is so fast paced and over the top the story gets lost in its meaning, that is if it even has one. Now that I think about it, it’s perfect for that 1993 crossover you’d expect from Image, all style and little substance.
Who cares about the story right? What we’re interested in is the art. We’ve been waiting for years for these guys to get something together and now that they have, does it pay off? With each artist rendering his own creations you’re bound to have an inconsistent look, and unfortunately it’s really noticeable. Some of the artists still draw well and their characters still look and feel like characters you want to read, people like Silvestri, Portacio and McFarlane (what little he does in this issue).
Then you have the characters that were most prevalent, Savage Dragon and the team from Youngblood. Drawn by Larsen and Liefeld respectively, they really bring down the quality of the book. I was never a fan of Eric Larsens work so I wasn’t looking forward to seeing his stuff, but at times it looked really bad. Then there’s Rob Liefeld’s stuff with Youngblood. To put it bluntly, he was a bad artist back then and nothing’s changed. The characters look stiff, lifeless and plain terrible. I can’t remember the last time Liefeld’s drawn a character that doesn’t have his fists clenched. And what’s with the massively huge wrists they all have? It pained me every time I had to see one of his characters, he’s just that bad.
Overall, Image United is a mess. Sure, it’s nice seeing some creators get back to what made them so popular, but let’s be honest here. They should have kept the past in the past. The story is a massive let down, and the various artists just add to the chaos. I didn’t have high hopes for the story given the involvement of some of the creators and thankfully wasn’t too disappointed. Ultimately, this is for fans who want to remember the soulless days of the 1990′s where style mattered over story.
