Injection #2

By Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire

So, let’s talk Injection, shall we? It’s probably the reason you’re here, so at least you know you’re in the right place. To say that Warren Ellis is twisted is like turning to your friend and saying, ‘Oh, hey, that bird is flying.’ Some of the stuff he’s come up with is absolutely messed up; it’s hard to look at Godzilla anymore as I once did thanks to him, and to those that know where that’s from sorry it had to be brought up again. And let’s not even begin to discuss Transmetropolitan—though, it’s easily in this reviewer’s top five best series of all time.

Moving on, Ellis is not only twisted to gleefully frightening levels, but he’s also an absolute master when it comes to his characters. There’s something about the way he crafts and molds each individual that just seem to give them all that little extra spark that really allows them to take on a life of their own. They’re interesting, different, very much individuals and it always feels like you can never quite get enough information on them. Every novel or comic series that Ellis has done, the characters are just the kinds of fictional people you want to spend time with and really get to know. Hell, he even managed to do that with the generally strange and arguably B or C class hero Moon Knight in the recent Marvel series of the same name. The characters are just stellar, which translates to stellar dialogue and of course stellar story. If you’ve been living under a rock and have never read anything by Warren Ellis, it’s definitely something you need to remedy as fast as you can. Hell, start here and work your way back because there is just no way you’d be disappointed.

And then, ladies and gentlemen, there is the art. Declan Shalvey recently chatted with us about Injection and his nervousness about people’s reaction to it and how it would be received, and it’s safe to tell you all, including you Dec, that there is nothing to worry about here. This is Declan’s best work of his career, and yes that includes that monumentally fantastic work he did on Moon Knight. As if it were a match made by the comic gods, this creative team gels together like very few could ever hope. The character work that Declan does with the skeleton work that Ellis has already laid out is phenomenal and is very much on the same level of intricacy and details that you’ll find in their personality and back stories. Clearly there was a lot of time spend on these characters, and these pages, and it more than shows in every single panel.

Not to be outdone, Eisner winning colorist extrodinaire, Jordie Bellaire (sorry for the rhyming) also might be turning in the best work of her career. The subtlety and nuisances that she puts into every panel is just spot on and even taking a panel of two characters talking and almost muting out the background, dulling it down and making sure the characters are brighter than everything else, is a stroke of genius. It’s something that maybe not everybody will pick up on, because it’s so subtly brilliant, but it really does add to the immense focus on the characters that, of course, are the stars of this book.

Ellis is amazing, Declan and Jordie are pumping out career-defining work and Injection is yet another Image book that will undoubtedly be on everybody’s best of lists for 2015. It almost feels like a sleeper at this point, simply because the coverage doesn’t seem to be there just yet, but it’ll get there and you (yes you, reader, you’ve not been forgotten) will want to get in on this at the ground level. This is not a series you want to come late to. It’s not a trade-waiting kind of book, though it’ll read fantastic in a trade just as it does in singles. Injection is just starting to put its pieces together and reveal where this creative team is headed and, god damnit, if these first two issues are any indication it’s going to be one hell of a ride.