I’ll be honest, even though I was in my comic book sabbatical phase when Marvel fired up it’s Ultimate line of books, I was still aware of their existence and not terribly fond of the idea.  The idea to reboot your setting by creating a new line of titles that exist in their own continuity, while at the same time maintaining the books in your existing continuity, just seemed like one of those bad ideas that are unique to the comic book medium.  Then again, having a dozen flavors of Batman and X-Men each month also strikes me as a bad thing, so it’s obvious I don’t think like a publisher.

A few weeks back, for reasons I can’t quite fathom, I made the spontaneous decision to start reading the Ultimate line of comics.  In it’s entirety.  

I am a long time reader of Veritgo comics. I’m a fan of the characters, I’m a fan of the line and I’m a fan of what the line meant for creators. When I heard about the concept for Justice League Dark I was torn a little bit. On one hand I was excited about these characters being brought into the New 52 and on the other hand, I had an issue with these characters being on a team of any kind let alone a team with the word ‘Justice’ in the title. Every one of them is a solo character that has plenty of history of not getting along with others or even getting others killed.  In the end, I was more than pleasantly satisfied with the outcome.

In the beginning of Image Comics during the early nineties, I read it all. I couldn’t get my hands on enough of them. Image was known for it’s awesome art, foil covers, Image 0 coupons and gobs of books with the word blood, strike or force in the title. Some of it was great, some of it was terrible, but I think the ultimate goal for the greater good was reached. Creator-owned comics not only hit it big, they thrived.  The big pubs couldn’t push creators around anymore and not only did that benefit the creators, but us readers won big as well. Today Image has matured into a comic book story power house. Uniquely original content that includes tales of surviving a zombie apocalypse, a story of an FDA Agent who solves crimes by getting psychic impressions from the things he eats (including humans), an underground company that erases tragedy for a nominal fee, by time traveling and  a story about an oil tycoon heir who decides to settle the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and declare it his own sovereign nation… just to name a few. Today Image is ripe with great stories just waiting to be read. Here are my 5 Reasons You Should be Reading More Image Comics.