Prophet #21

writer: Brandon Graham
artist: Simon Roy

Perhaps one of the more intriguing comic book stories is the continuing saga of Rob Liefeld's career, from boy genius to Image co-founder to pariah and back to respected member of the greater comics community (in this case, a prominent member of the class of the New 52 at DC as well), still trying to work on the creations he brought to Image twenty years ago. I knew next to nothing about the Prophet concept before this was announced, and that's just as well, since as far as I can tell, you don't need to. Like someone took a look at Peter Jackson's Skull Island monsters in his King Kong and decided to make a comic book series about them, Brandon Graham has (theoretically) reshaped the series into a bid to reclaim humanity from its own mistakes, with a man named John Prophet waking up in the future with a plan to set things right again after the planet has been claimed by aliens who've done a fair bit of redecorating in the intervening centuries. More like Walking Dead than Spawn, this is exactly the kind of material that the company has become known for since its dramatic debut two decades ago, gradually becoming a haven for anyone looking for anything other than the mainstream. Most of the time, it's meant that Image has had to settle for significantly fewer readers than it once had, but a project like Prophet might help turn that around, with a peculiar mix of familiarity and the sense of the unknown mixing together for an experience that will no doubt prove compelling for fans interested in discovering the next big thing.