Image Comics; $5.99

The Golden Age is back? Look around! Marvel has The Twelve, Dynamite has Project Superpowers, and now Image Comics has Fantastic Comics, part of publisher Erik Larsen’s "Next Issue Project."

Originally, the Fox Features Syndicate anthology series ended with #23 back in 1941, but that didn’t stop Larsen. He assembled a great group of writers and artists including Joe Casey, Bill Sienkiewicz, Thomas Yeats, Andy Kuhn, Michael Allred, and Larsen himself and they in turn produced a truly diverse hybrid that is part flashback to the Golden Age and part thoroughly modern indy comic.

"It’s modern creators doing Golden Age characters. They’ll have a similar look, with flat color-not rendered to beat the band but at the same time I think it would be a waste of time to have a modern creator draw exactly like the guys of old," Larsen told ComicBookResources.com. "Asking Bill Sienkiewicz draw like Dick Sprang would be a waste of time. Why would you do that when you’ve got someone who can bring something different or cool to the page? The idea is to modernize these characters to an extent-without trashing or redesigning them."

The issue is even in Golden Age format (like early issues of The Tick when it debuted) and it’s startling how much bigger it is than our pre-shrunken modern comics. Definitely a commendable effort, and we’re already looking forward to the next "next issue," Crack Comics #63.