Written by John Rozum
Art by Frazer Irving
2012
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On the cover there's this quote from Ain't It Cool News: "I haven't read a book this intriguingly and engagingly weird since I first dropped into Grant Morrison's The Invisibles." That's a very enticing little sentence (and I wouldn't be at all surprised if whoever wrote it did so with the hope of getting it splashed on the cover like that - but whatever): because - even tho I'm not The Invisibles biggest fan (altho there are bits of it that I do like a lot): the 2012 version of the Invisibles [1] is a pretty exciting prospect. So - yeah - going into this I was all: woo! Yay! Bring it on.
And the first issue hits the spot in just the right way. Outlandish concepts and fanciful ideas mixed the promise of some old-school action adventure delivered with just the barest hit of smile? A character called Nun of the Above? Another character called Nun the Less? And a re-running of that thing where you skip to various parts of the world with panel to see strange things happening (eg: "In Moscow a baby was born with six heads. In a library in Northern Queensland all the Fiction started eating the Non-Fiction - while in New York an old lady did a poo that spoke to her in perfect French."[2]: see also: Judge Anderson: Satan and John Smith's Devlin Waugh: Red Tide and I'm pretty sure Grant Morrison has done stuff like it too - but I can't remember exactly where... someplace in The Invisibles maybe?).
But yeah - wait: some history: Xombi first appeared way back in 1994 and was written then (as now) by John Rozum (different artist tho). So technically this is Xombi 2: same character with the same back-story doing pretty much the same things I guess (according to wikipedia there was also something to do with the big Infinite Crisis thing in 2005/2006 where David Kim (that's the guy who's Xombi) was the Green Lantern or something which I didn't know when I read this - but which I now realise is why there's a little throw-away Green Lantern comment - because everyone loves an in-joke - right?)
The artwork is totally NICE. Full of bright and evil pinks, burning intense yellows and ocean-deep blues and greens. But I'll admit now that I didn't manage to make it all the way to the end. Because as much as I wanted to get into it and have myself get entertained. I dunno - after a while it all just felt a little bit like wackiness for wackinesses sake - and the threads that were supposed to hold the story together all just started to feel weak and arbitrary: like with every bit of new info you find out - instead of making the story tie more together - it kinda made it feel like it was actually just falling apart (but then I didn't reach the end - so what do I know?)
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[1] And you know - woo synchronicity and all that - because if there was one year that The Invisibles was all about it was 2012.
[2] Wow. Look at that - I'm amazing. I should write comics!
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Links: Comics Journal Review of Xombi #1, Graphic Novel Reporter Review, Guerrilla Geek Review, Good Comic Books Interview with John Rozum.
Further reading: The Invisibles, The Bulletproof Coffin, The Unwritten, Chew, iZombie, Batman: Batman and Robin, Aetheric Mechanics.
All comments welcome.
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