Ascend (Image Comics)

Shy's artwork for this quasi-religious melodrama is state of the art and then some—Dave McKean's cover artwork for Sandman is an obvious reference point, but there's no trick in the Photoshop toolbox Shy doesn't pull out on almost every page. Blurred, paint-stroke–like photography, translucent white manifestations of energy, swirling tinted flesh tones revealing patterns of musculature that make the book's angel characters look like CT scans are being projected on their bodies, and a heavy green filter over nearly everything—the artwork looks like the apotheosis of the last 10 years' worth of video games, Matrix movies and Marilyn Manson album covers. Arem and Cuthbertson's story, in which an angel of death falls in love with a human woman who's attempted suicide while the war between Heaven and Hell destroys the world, is an amalgam of every portentous fantasy cliché ever committed. And the dialogue is pretentious to the point of utter incoherence: "And yet, we are denied the Harvest Light.... Punishment is a cruel intercourse," declares one tormented angel. The overbearing art prevents any of the characters from coming alive, but fantasy artwork buffs will salivate over the lavish, painterly detail in every panel. (Feb.)
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