Classic Comic Compendium: Early DEATHBLOW is probably a little different than you remember

3 days ago 7

The early years of Image were an interesting time. Some would say lawless chaos. Or just chaos. Which makes a certain amount of sense when you’ve got a group of highly creative people who just broke away from the Big Two comics publishers and are experiencing creative freedom for the first time. Or at least publishing freedom for the first time. They were building their own worlds.

After the Image founders launched their first books, there was a wave afterwards to move away from the more brightly coloured superheroics to a Darker Image. A one-shot that featured three spins on more mature subject matter, gritty realism, and a Lobo knock-off probably best forgotten. It introduced us to Sam Kieth’s The Maxx and a guilt-ridden former black ops agent dying from cancer, Deathblow.

“It seems like this rain has been pouring forever. It’s so dark out now I can hardly even tell it’s daytime.”

Deathblow by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, Tim Sale, Trevor Scott, Sal Regla, Joe Chiodo, Linda Medley, Claudia LaRue, an army of people doing colouring assists and separations, Mike Heisler, and Todd Klein is a supernatural action thriller. Yeah, that surprised me too when I first read these decades ago. It starts out as what you might think of as a jacked-up black ops type story, introducing IO operative Michael Cray, and then becomes End of Days (years before) as an ancient evil is loosed from its prison and kickstarts the apocalypse. It’s a trip.

Whether or not you consider Brandon Choi a good writer is up to you. What isn’t in question is that he was foundational to early WildStorm, co-creating and writing the bedrock of the universe in WildCATs, StormWatch, and Deathblow. I’ll also agree with is that he has a tendency to overwrite, though I’d say it’s an influence from other writers like Chris Claremont. Just walls of prose and exposition. If you grew up with this style, you may even find it comforting. So, it’s not something I personally would consider good or bad, just preference. Although there are bits where it feels like it almost slides into parody, especially some of the hard-boiled narration.

Which in itself is kind of funny because this also feels inspired by Frank Miller’s Sin City. Kind of. At least the original serial and most specifically in the art. In the first two issues, Jim Lee employs a style very reminiscent of Miller’s with stark, solid shadow characters, often down to silhouettes. Choi’s narration and dialogue is similarly spare here. Leaving Mike Heisler plenty of space to spread out his lettering, with it appearing almost poetic.

It’s only in the third issue, and the arrival of Tim Sale taking over art chores, that there’s a dramatic shift in amount of narration and dialogue. Even though Sale is also employing a heavy ink style. This is also where more of the supernatural themes really come in to play. Todd Klein similarly takes over lettering duties here, giving the work a bit of a different feel as the walls of text roll in, and giving unique word balloons to the antagonist.

The dark, solid shadows and silhouettes of the line art are enhanced through a stylized, muted colour scheme lain out first by Joe Chiodo, then picked up by Linda Medley and Claudia LaRue as the series progresses. It’s mostly washes of dark greens and blues, giving the story a very oppressive, downcast feel.

“Good… Evil… It’s really about power, Mikey.”

Deathblow by Choi, Lee, Sale, Scott, Regla, Chiodo, Medley, LaRue, Heisler, and Klein starts with gritty angst and quickly develops into a strange, action-filled ride that runs through muscled up priests, warrior nuns, fallen angels, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It dovetails some WildStorm history and shady governmental operations with extra-biblical supernatural warfare. All tied up in a style that feels like a Frank Miller homage.

Early Image was definitely an interesting place.

Classic Comic Compendium: Deathblow

Deathblow: The Deluxe Edition
Writers: Brandon Choi (story & script) & Jim Lee (story)
Artists: Jim Lee (#1-3, 0), Tim Sale (#3-12) & Trevor Scott (#0)
Inkers: Sal Regla (#8, 11), Trevor Scott (#12)
Colourists: Joe Chiodo (#1-5, 0), Linda Medley (#6-12, assists – #4-5), Claudia LaRue (#0), Wendy Fouts (assists – #1-4), Paige Apfelbaum (assists – #2), Monica Bennett (assists – #4), Chameleon Prime (separations – #1), Ben Fernandez (separations – #2), Wildstorm FX (separations – #3, 6), Digital Chameleon (separations – #4-5, 7-9), IHOC (computer colouring #10), Electric Crayon (computer colouring #10-12)
Letterers: Mike Heisler (#1-2, 0) & Todd Klein (#3-12, 0)
Publisher: DC Comics (Deluxe Edition) | Image Comics – Wildstorm (original issues)
Release Date: March 19 2014 (Deluxe Edition) | April 1993 – August 1996 (original issues)