Art by: Declan Shalvey
Colours by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Fonografiks
Published by: Image Comics
There are times when you presume something about a book, given the synopsis and creative input of various names, where you automatically raise your expectation that what you are about to read is something special, possibly even great. Then comes the bitter, sad truth: the pages offer you nothing new, quite derivative, and worst of all… banal.
I don’t mean to be so harsh on Injection, the premise is supposed to draw you into this world yet what we get is a slightly confusing mass with nothing to whet your appetite.
As the book kicks off we have several pages of set up, of slow, ponderous set up. There is no boom, no wow, a distinct lack of pizzazz – whatever initial energy is there I missed it. As the story grows, as the array of characters builds (not that we care for them) the book never really builds any momentum and stalls with the initial inertia, and Injection never manages to escape from it.
If the story lags, on occasion, you find salvation in the art. Sometimes. At other times you find an equally flat tone in the sequentials. Again, like the beginning of the story from Warren Ellis, we have a flat set of panels that fail to excite the reader and, when combined with the story, it doesn’t make for much in terms of an interesting read.
The idea behind the book isn’t, in itself, a bad one. We have some ‘special’ people who can do some special things. Indeed, that sounds more trite than a super powered defender of justice… They are a fractured team, with an incoherent narrative.
As the issue culminates there isn’t a sense of anticipation, the ending is quite functional and serves to put the reader out of their misery. Injection will need a hefty dosage to salvage the series after this opener. Who knows, #1 may be a false start, the next instalment may be where this really sets the pulse racing. Or maybe the writing is on the wall for Injection, maybe the medication is terminal…
