Geek Syndicate
COMIC REVIEW
EGOs #1
Writer: Stuart Moore
Artist: Gus Storms
Publisher: Image Comics
A twisted far-future epic! An aging
hero risks everything to rebuild his
former team – but to do so, he must
cross a line with his wife that can’t
be uncrossed.
“With EGOs, Stuart Moore’s
thoughtful writing style really
comes into its own. Very highly recommended.”
-GARTH ENNIS (Preacher, Fury MAX)
“EGOs sets up house at the junction
of superhero stories and big-ideas
sci-fi — then trashes the junction
and builds its own huge, insane
theme park.”
-MIKE CAREY (Lucifer, The Unwritten)
There is a lot of potential in EGOs,
the new Image comic book from Stuart Moore and Gus Storms. After all,
we’ve read a lot of far future science
fiction comics and we’ve read a lot of
superhero comics. What there’s not a
whole lot of, however, is far future superhero comics. Not like this one.
68
EGOs is the acronym of the Earth Galactic Operatives. We’re introduced
to them via Viggo, the Planetarian,
who is sitting on a dead world. He
is attempting to work out why it’s
dead, just by looking at it: that is his
power. Then, Masse turns up. Masse
is a floating red blob. Jelly-like, with
the possibility of a humanoid shape
inside. We’re told the events that followed happened many years ago.
We’re looking at a planet orbiting a
naked singularity. We’re looking at
the big bad; Repliqa. We’re looking at
the original EGOs: seven superheroes
who protected the galaxy. It turns
out that the leader, Deuce, is telling
a large arena audience about what
happened next. Then the announcement: an all-new, young EGOs team
is being assembled. The heroes are
back! But not is all as it seems. Not
with Deuce and his relationship with
his wife. Not with the story he’s been
telling. Not with the faces we’re seeing. While all this is going on, the narration becomes more pointed and
more interesting. The narrator is introduced as a dysfunctional individual with an important secret.
So, there is lots going on. Lots of plot
and world-building within the first
issue of a comic. Stuart Moore is experienced in telling other superhero
stories (JLA, X-Men Origins, SpiderMan and Deadpool amongst others). I
wonder if EGOs is his passion? He is
familiar with the standard tropes of
the super-team and he bends them
expertly to his will. Nothing and noone is as they seem, even though
they tend to have the standard comic book names. No guessing what
Repliqa planned to use to conquer
the universe. So we have The Fear,
Opener, Spectrica and others. The
trick Moore pulls with the identity of
Deuce and the team is genius. I didn’t
see that coming at all. There are surface similarities to other left-field superhero teams but this twist is something fresh and new. Moore is clearly
enjoying creating this universe and
these characters, and the enthusiasm
shines through.
Before I paid too much attention to its
creator, the artwork and style of the
future reminded me of Image Comics’ debris, drawn by Riley Rossmo
– art that I loved. I knew this wasn’t
by Rossmo, but I knew nothing about
Gus Storms, who drew and coloured
this comic book. The art is rough, deliberately so. Not quite granular but
scratchy and busy. Large panels and
colour themed pages dominate. There
is a lot of detail – which is very effective in the identity reveal. There is also
vagueness. Contrasts. It is a style, like
that of Rossmo, which is very effective for Image’s sci-fi canon. While the
good guys all look fairly generic, the
bad guys – Masse in particular – are
highly imaginative. It might not work
for those expecting heroes to look
like the top guns from Marvel and DC,
but within context, I think it couldn’t
be better.
As usual with Image, there are a couple of bonus pages at the end of the
book, including an interview with
both creators and sketches of early
character designs.
There have been a lot of reinventions
of the superhero in the last few years,
both rebooting existing ones and
newly created heroes. The EGOs team
are among very few that might make
you sit up and take notice. Without too much boring exposition, the
reader is thrown in and then quickly familiar with this new universe.
Moore and Storms have created an
immediately interesting comic book
with potentially intriguing characters in what I hope will continue to
be an interesting and original story.
Rating
Ian J. Simpson
G G G GG