“Well, if that’s the game we’re playing…I guess it’s my turn to be the bad guy.”
In 2018, modern comics history was made when writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman launched the first issue of their run on Venom at Marvel Comics. This not only redefined the character for modern audiences, but it was also the start of a beautiful collaborative friendship between the creative team.
Now, some years after their reinvention of the Lethal Protector, Cates and Stegman reunite to bring us Vanish, a brutal tale of sorcerers, superheroes, and bloody revenge.
This first four-issue arc introduces us to Oliver Harrison, an addict and alcoholic who seems to be taking the life he has for granted. When he’s mugged and a local superhero saves him, Oliver immediately recognizes the hero as an enemy from his past. In this past, Oliver was a child who lived in a fantastical realm and was drafted into a war of magics against Baron Vanish as the chosen one of the Mistlands of Everkeep.
For a while, the war was over. Except for Oliver, who dreads the day that Baron Vanish could come knocking again. The KLC Press creative team asks the question: what happens to the chosen one after their war ends? The answer becomes blurrier with each dive into our protagonist’s psyche.
What is exceedingly well done in this opening arc is the quick work done in the world building. We have Everkeep, a Dungeons & Dragons inspired realm existing outside the real world, and a modern day New York that’s populated by superheroes. However, these superheroes just so happen to be notorious beings known as the Hollow who fled from Everkeep, which frames our vengeful hero as the bad guy in the real world.
Oliver’s fall is characterized via his substance abuse and cynicism. As he seeks to rid the world of his past enemies once and for all, we are made to wonder whether or not his addiction to being the chosen one is doing more harm than good to him and the people around him. All in all, it makes for an excellent, realistic study of a flawed man who never stopped believing that the weight of the world is on his shoulders.
This book further solidifies Cates and Stegman as a dream team in today’s industry, with intelligent and emotionally raw scripts that pair brilliantly with the grungy blockbuster pencils in order to look its readers in the eye and tell them that this comic has an attitude. The attitude in question is the ’90s comic attitude, as the tone of Vanish draws heavily from the comics that started off Image Comics as a publisher, most notably the aesthetic of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. But despite reliance on this tone, the team manages to create something new with excitingly interesting twists that only they could come up with.
This is also not Cates’ first brush with magic and sorcery, which are things he tackled less recently in his Image miniseries Buzzkill and his short run on Doctor Strange at Marvel. Without a doubt both of these stepping stones led to the creation of this mature urban fantasy epic.
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