Comics

Advance Comic Review: We Can Never Go Home #1 Will Teach You About Yourself

Published

9 years ago

January 23, 2015

“We Can Never Go Home” resonates with me long after I finished the last page. The book is a strange tale of being an outsider and finding a sense of belonging not in a club or a group but through a single person, powerfully communicated on the page by Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon. I couldn’t help but feel sharp pangs of nostalgia when flipping through the comic because it captured exactly how I, and I imagine, we all felt during one of the shittiest times in our collective lives. Its incredible realized, poignant, and powerful stuff.

WRITTEN BY: Matthew Rosenberg & Patrick Kindlon

ART BY: Josh Hood

PUBLISHER: Black Mask Studios
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: March 25, 2015

After a rather tumultuous introduction Duncan sees something special in Madison, a girl who conceivably has everything and a boy who seemingly has nothing. It’s a story you’ve seen before, but never like this. The opening scene does a phenomenal job at selling who these characters are, and the odd attraction between them. “We Can Never Go Home” shows highschool as a breeding ground for isolation. You can’t possibly be treated like a normal human being, and the shitty result is a hierarchy of social status. We all know the one, and we all know where we fit.

But Duncan seems oddly oblivious to it. He walks the line between oblivious and enlightened. Of course he sells it as enlightened but Rosenberg and Kindlon give you plenty of reasons to doubt his claims. Despite this, throughout the issue Duncan and Madison grow closer through shared experience. They find solace in one another. And in a beautiful scene they share a mixtape. Seriously, there is nothing better than sharing music with someone you are into. You can learn so much about a person in the music they are willing to share with you, and in doing so Maddie feels some sort of attraction to Duncan, or pity, who knows?

But what they share leads them to commit something that changes their world forever. For better or worse it remains to be seen. Yet, I can’t help but read into the issue and believe that Duncan isn’t exactly truthful in his interactions with anyone. Perhaps its just me, but there is something oddly melancholic about this book, and in an even weirder way it’s liberating. Perhaps its that classic loss of innocence, or something more, I’m not quite sure yet.

Josh Hood does a phenomenal job at creating a world of teenage drama that feels authentic and violent. His art captures the vulnerability of anyone below the first rung of that social hierarchy and captures body language like it was his second nature. There are a few pages in which he manages to comfortably fill the page with more panels than I thought possible and the book still reads like a dream.

“We Can Never Go Home” will remind you of that ugly time when you thought you were so alone, but enlightens that moment by showing you the beautiful solace one can find in another person. Sometimes rebellion is the best answer, and some people weren’t made for the system they were thrown into. This is a book for everyone who ever experienced loneliness as a teenager, which, last time I checked was just about every single person I knew.

Zac Thompson

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Comics

‘Witchblade’ is Getting Resurrected This Summer in New Comic Series from Top Cow and Image Comics

Published

7 days ago

April 18, 2024

Meagan Navarro

Witchblade, the popular comic series that initially ran from 1995 to 2015 and launched a TV series, is getting resurrected in a new comic series from Top Cow and Image Comics. It’s set to unleash heavy metal, black magic and blood this summer.

Look for the new Witchblade series to launch on July 17, 2024.

In Witchblade #1, “New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini’s life was forever fractured by her father’s murder. Cold, cunning, and hellbent on revenge, Sara now stalks a vicious criminal cabal beneath the city, where an ancient power collides and transforms her into something wild, magnificent, and beyond her darkest imaginings. How will Sara use this ancient power, or will she be consumed by it?”

The series is penned by NYT Best-Selling writer Marguerite Bennett (Animosity, Batwoman, DC Bombshells) and visualized by artist Giuseppe Cafaro (Suicide Squad, Power Rangers, Red Sonja). The creative duo is working with original co-creator Marc Silvestri, who is the CEO of Top Cow Productions Inc. and one of the founders of Image Comics. They are set to reintroduce the series to Witchblade’s enduring fans with “a reimagined origin with contemporary takes on familiar characters and new story arcs that will hook new readers and rekindle the energy and excitement that fueled the 90’s Image Revolution that shaped generations of top creators.”

Bennett said in a statement, “The ability to tell a ferocious story full of monsters, sexuality, vision, and history was irresistible.” She adds, “Our saga is sleek, vicious, ferocious, and has a lot to say about power in the 21st century and will be the first time that we are stopping the roller coaster to let more people on. I’ve loved Witchblade since I was a child, and there is truly no other heroine like Sara with such an iconic legacy and such a rich, brutal relationship to her own body.”

“The Witchblade universe is being modernized to reflect how Marguerite beautifully explores the extreme sides of Sara through memories, her personal thoughts, like desire and hunger, in her solitude and when she is possessed by the Witchblade. So, I had to visually intersect a noir True Detective-like world with a supernatural, horror world that is a fantastic mix between Berserk and Zodiac,” Cafaro stated.

Marc Silvestri notes, “This is brand new mythology around Sara, and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with her and all the twists and turns. Discover Witchblade reimagined this summer, and join us as we bring all the fun of the 90s to the modern age and see how exciting comics can be. I can’t wait for you to read this new series.”

Witchblade#1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, July 17th, for $4.99 for 48 pages. And it’ll come with multiple cover variants.