Image Comics; $3.99

If you either are a hardcore Image fan or you just have a soft spot for the characters and the period of comics history in which they were born, it’s hard not to like Image United #1.

It’s not going to be confused with Jar of Fools, Fax From Sarajevo or Maus, but then it’s not intended to be. Instead, it has a clarity of purpose: it is a simultaneous celebration and refocusing of the ideas and concepts that made Image Comics into what it was and what it can be.

Back in 1992, when the Image founders left their lucrative assignments at Marvel Comics behind to publish and more importantly own the characters they created, it set off shockwaves in the business. Craziness ensued.

Then, as these things happen, the boom turned to bust. One of the founders, Jim Lee, sold his studio and characters to DC. Another, Rob Liefeld, left acrimoniously. But Image survived.

Image United wouldn’t work simply as a nostalgia tour because the legacy of that early period is so uneven, but as a first step or first spark of an idea, it’s brilliant. It’s hard to say the early Image offerings were great comic books. With notable exceptions, they were largely writerless packages of beautiful and sometimes innovative art.

But the revolution in creator-ownership that Image pushed along is a monumental force in the history of the American comic book industry, and many of the characters did find their ways into some truly fun stories. In the end, it’s hard not to find at least a wistful soft spot for those early days.

Even just on its own merits, the notion of this mini-series is pretty cool.

Todd McFarlane is drawing Spawn. Marc Silvestri is illustrating Cyberforce and Witchblade. Eric Larsen is drawing Savage Dragon (the one thing at Image that has never changed). Jim Valentino has a new ShadowHawk. Whilce Portacio is introducing a new character. Rob Liefeld, who returned his Youngblood to Image last year, is on board, and even Jim Lee provided a variant cover.

“Uniting these artists is Robert Kirkman, arguably the most important figure at Image since the original seven. Kirkman is scripting a crossover adventure that unties all these heroes in the face of a common threat. The premise is almost eerily familiar to the likes of Onslaught and all those other crossovers that either made the ’90s fun or destroyed comics as we know it, depending on your inclinations,” wrote Jesse Schedeen on IGN.com.

And while Schedeen makes it clear later on in his review that he didn’t like the results, he has a point. Back in 1992, bringing these diverse creators together into a project on which they were working on each other’s pages would have been like sentencing Kirkman to herd cats from a top a camel.

Now, though, he makes it work. Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s shared experience. We don’t know and it doesn’t matter.

Kirkman, the newest Image partner, is unique among his peers in that he’s a writer rather than an artist or writer-artist. He brings to the project a focus that ties it all together. Of course we’re only one issue in, but he’s the guy who does Invincible and The Walking Dead, and as such it’s hard not to trust him.

All of this to say, hey, we really enjoyed this and are looking forward with expectations to Image United #2. Rock on, guys!