Necrosha: The Gathering (One-Shot)
From a young I age I have always been drawn more strongly to villains. In Star Wars, I cheered for Boba Fett. When we played GI Joe, I always had to be Storm Shadow. Now that I am older (chronologically speaking), this fascination has not changed. Necrosha: The Gathering helped scratch my villainous itch!
Right off the bat, the first thing this book had going for it was that it was written by Kyle and Yost. These two scribes are quickly becoming my new favourite writers in the comic book kingdom. And despite this book having many obstacles that could potentially get in the way (i.e. being a One-Shot, set up as a collection of smaller stories), the creative team knocked it out of the park.
The only thing I like better than a good villain (sorry for the oxymoron), is when a writer highlights a character which normally does not receive any of the spotlight. Necrosha: The Gathering does this five times, highlighting Selene’s Inner Circle of Wither, Blink, Senyaka, Mortis and Eliphas. Each character is featured in a different story and portrayed by a different artist. This is a great format that is seldom used. Having the same writers scribe all five short stories helped tremendously! We were treated to just enough of a taste of each character to leave us wanting more.
The stories ranged from flashbacks (Wither), to origins (Eliphas) to “What ever happened to her?” (Blink). All are interesting and well packaged, which can be very difficult considering how restricting having limited pages to wrap up a story can be.
All of the art was dark and very fitting to the stories. I particularly enjoyed Leonardo Manco’s (of Hellstorm and Deathlok) work on the Senyaka story. Throw the Clayton Crain movie cover poster style cover on top and you have a winner. This book left me wanting more of these obscure characters, and I hope Marvel is able to deliver them in the ongoing Necrosha story arc.