Do we really need another romp dealing with potential end times? Read on to find out.

The official description from Image:

Alison Carter is a private detective. Her beat: the end of the world, or more accurately, preventing same. With an attitude of “shoot first and the hell with the questions,” she leads a life that would drive other investigators mad, filled with monsters, demons, trolls, mad prophets, zombie detectives, techno-wizards, machinegun toting imps, and dead boyfriends. In the first action-packed installment of this new universe, Al is given her biggest assignment ever, one that will take her into the heart of Ultimate Darkness itself. The first of a four-issue miniseries, this issue contains 30 pages of story, unbroken by advertisements.

I’m not going to lie: when you first crack open this comic book you’re going to get a feeling of deja vu because a lot of what’s covered feels familiar. Even so what saves this one is the creative team because they successfully inject enough personality into these proceedings to make it all digestible.

It’s true that J. Michael Straczynski can be overly wordy or even a bit self indulging, but what he delivers is almost always fascinating. This latest comic is no different, as he gives us a quirky protagonist that’s worth rooting for. The apocalyptic adventures of Alison Carter are fun, slightly serious but entirely amusing. And at this point I can honestly say that he is easily one of my favorite modern scribes and I’m more than on board with this franchise.

The art by Sid Kotian is great. The illustrations delivered here are dynamic, as the talent easily realized the necessary aspects of the text. There are fluctuations that look a wee bit off, as facial anomalies took me out of the moment but the bulk of what we see here is rather fetching. In short: the display is really good and I can’t wait to see what’s accomplished as this title moves forward.

The Adventures of Apocalypse Al #1 is an outlandish but fun yarn that touches on the familiar while making itself wholly unique. Recommended.

4/5