by Larry Clow
Like Hollywood, comic publishers tend to save their blockbuster books for the summer. Blockbusters aren’t always the best, though, and already, April has seen the debut issues of a number of promising series (and the early start of one of those middling blockbusters).
“No Mercy” Image Comics
The latest series from writer Alex de Campi and artist Carla Speed McNeil is a candy-colored Millenial B-movie. The first issue finds a group of Princeton-bound freshmen heading to Central America to build houses before school starts. A traffic accident on a twisting mountain road ensures that everything will go straight to hell for the kids and their chaperones. De Campi’s most recent series was “Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight,” an anthology series that paid homage to old-school horror and sci-fi flicks, and one issue in, “No Mercy” seems to have a similar sensibility. That darkness is tempered by McNeil’s light pencils and colorist Jenn Manley Lee’s bright hues. De Campi keeps the pace brisk in the first issue, giving us glimpses of the characters through snippets of dialogue, social media posts, and the typical conversations teens have on long bus rides. Those characters initially seem shallow, but it’s clear de Campi and McNeil have much more to reveal about the students and their situation. It’ll be fun, and almost too painful, to see what happens next.
“Rebels” Dark Horse Comics
Wars, and the soldiers who fight them, are a recurring motif in writer Brian Wood’s work. His two landmark Vertigo/DC Comics series, “DMZ” and “Northlanders,” were both military-minded, with the former chronicling a 21st-century American civil war and the latter spinning tales of Vikings in the 10th century. Wood particularly loves stories about underdogs facing impossible odds, and so it’s fitting that “Rebels” is set during the American Revolution. Unlike most Revolution-era stories, though, “Rebels” isn’t about George Washington or the other forefathers. Instead, we meet Seth Abbott, a young militiaman in Vermont’s Green Mountains, and Mercy Tucker, a farmer’s daughter keen to defend her family’s land. Penciler Andrea Mutti and colorist Jordie Bellaire give the book an appropriate New England feel, with stripped-down panels and practical colors that propel the story forward. “Rebels” gets its big moments from some fine character work, and though there’s plenty of action, it’s clear that this is the sort of epic where the payoff is grounded in its protagonists and not retreads of famous battles.
“Convergence”
DC Comics
The summer superhero crossover has been a tradition at DC and Marvel Comics for years. This time around, both publishers are fielding a similar story — parallel universes featuring different versions of beloved heroes are smashed together, pitting hero against slightly-different hero. DC’s entry, “Convergence,” doubles as a publishing safety net as the company moves its corporate offices from New York to California and suspends publication of its main titles for two months. Replacing them will be some 50 two-issue miniseries featuring fights between fan-favorite versions of DC’s heroes. The conceit’s been done before, by DC and other publishers, and the first issue of the main “Convergence” title is a snoozer. But the miniseries themselves are promising — Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner’s “Convergence: The Question” is a welcome return to The Question, Two-Face, and other Batman-related characters that Rucka has worked on throughout the last decade. “Convergence” will be a chance for long-time fans to revisit characters abandoned after previous DC crossovers, but for new readers, it will likely be impenetrable.