Comic Review: A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance #1

Image Comics

Writer: Rick Remender

Art: Chris O’Halloran

Letters: Rus Wooton

This week Image Comics releases another first issue. This one deviates a bit from its recent superhero era and brings it back to what drew me in towards the publisher’s titles in the first place: mystery and artistic expression. This is what I thought of the first issue of Rick Remender and André Araújo’s A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance.

It’s rather challenging to describe the story that’s told in this first chapter whilst avoiding any spoilers. Choosing to keep the final pages from you, dear reader, I can only say that in this first issue we follow a man making his way out of Vancouver’s Chinatown towards a house in the countryside looking for a woman called Mary Sullivan. What we know of this man is very little. He’s having a bad day, he smokes a specific Chinese brand of cigarettes and he should get an umbrella.

While I’m not a super Remender fan, I’ve read a few of his titles and some of them are amongst my favorite comics. That being said, this cryptic and tamed approach for a first issue is new coming from him, at least for me. However, that is not a bad thing. This kind of introduction to a mystery story is, well, key to the mystery I’d say. We’re still able to relate to the protagonist as we see he’s a kind guy on a quest and having a bad day. This mundane situation we’re following him through gives the reveal at the end of the chapter even more of a kick.

André Araújo brings his A game for this first issue and it shows. Coming from an architecture background, Araújo fills the silent panels with tons of tiny details which really brings this comic to life. It’s amazing work and it sold the comic for me from the first few pages.

O’Halloran complements Araújo’s lines beautifully. Not only does the colorist manage an incredibly realistic lighting on most of the pages but also shifts the tones from real to surreal whenever the protagonist gets too emotional and reacts abruptly to yet another inconvenience in his terrible day. Almost as if he’s temporarily detached himself from the situation.

In a comic with little to no dialogue, a good letterer is key to keep the reader from thinking the creative team forgot about sounds. Rus Wooton fills the need for sound effects perfectly in every single panel. My favorite was the constant sound of a kettle whistling and how it continues uninterrupted along many panels. Almost as if it’s a somber soundtrack to the scene our protagonist is about to find.

This comic came as an excellent surprise in the middle of a difficult week at work. It reminded me of the first titles from Image Comics I was interested in, with an underlying mystery plot told in a bold and innovative way. I cannot recommend this enough.