Next week is the 4th new comic book day of 2025! This post covers Image Comics January 22 2025 new releases. Missed this week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Image Comics January 15 2025 new releases.
This week in Image Comics: Astro City completed (for now), Criminal reprints, more of Gunslinger’s origins, Cobra Commander vs. Destro, Christmas comes to Hyde Street, a return to Oz, a Savage Dragon celebration, a new branch of Tynion’s W0rldtr33, and more!
These posts will give me a chance to re-orient myself to what’s going on with Image after a few years away from reading any of their books!
The Krisis Pick of the Week: This was a close one for me with such a kick-ass issue of G.I. Joe out this week, but my pick goes to W0rldtr33 (2023) #12, kicking off a third arc of the James Tynion IV ongoing title that feels like a sequel to his indie “viral trilogy” that initially turned me on to his scary creator-owned work. More on this book below!
This post includes every comic out from Image Comics this week, plus collected editions. This isn’t the typical comic releases post you can find on other sites. Why? I explain each collection and comment on every series with a new issue out this week to help you figure out if they’re for you.
Plus, for some long-running series, I’ll point you to a personally-curated guide within the Crushing Comics Guide to Indie Comics to find out how to collect that title in full!
There’s no other website on the internet that can claim that.
And now, onto Image Comics January 22 2025 new releases!
Image Comics January 22 2025 Collected Editions
Note: Image Comics collections hit the direct market 2-3 weeks prior to when they ship to the book market, so if you order these Image Comics January 22 2025 books today from a traditional bookseller they will still be pre-orders and will arrive in a few weeks.
Astro City: Metrobook Vol. 6
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534350380 / digital)
These collects of Kurt Busiek’s indie classic Astro City are analogous to Marvel’s Complete Collections or Epics, collecting the entire series in gapless reading order. This volume collects through Astro City (2013) #52, which is the newest issue of the series – from the end of its run at DC’s Vertigo. That means if you have all six Metrobooks, you’ve got it all!
Personally, I’ve been waiting to have all of these Metrobooks in hand to start my personal binge, which will probably get underway once I’m all caught up on my Image reads for these posts next month! If you haven’t dipped your toe in yet, be forewarned – a first of two oversize hardcover omnibuses is due in just a few months after a lengthy delay.
Criminal Vol. 1: Coward 2025 Edition
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534370906 / digital)
Criminal Vol. 2: Lawless 2025 Edition
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534385078 / digital)
These are new Image Comics editions of the original slim Criminal paperbacks originally issued by Marvel starting in 2007, now with new covers from Sean Phillips to make the book’s adaptation into a show on Amazon.
The Scorched Vol. 5
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534379633 / digital)
See Guide to Spawn. This is the Spawn Universe team book, anchored by She-Spawn. The team focus means this often frames the internecine heaven/hell conflicts as action blowouts, which makes them a lot more fun than they can be in the main Spawn (1992) title.
Read on for summaries of Image Comics January 22 2025 single issue releases!
Image Comics January 22 2025 Physical Comic Releases
Creepshow [Vol. 3] (2024) #5 (digital) – This horror anthology series from Skybound wraps up its third run with stories from Ed Brisson and Kami Garcia.
Deadly Tales of the Gunslinger Spawn (2024) #2 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. Gunslinger Spawn is supporting two titles right now! His main book follows his adventures in the present day, but this series penned by Jimmy Palmiotti tells tells of his past as the Spawn of the Wild West.
Issue #1 is a retelling Gunslinger’s origin, tweaking some elements from what Todd McFarlane has established in the past. I liked it. It’s brutal and I could do without all the hints of rape to differentiate the decent bad guys from the most awful ones, but it’s a good story that sucked me along from page to page in a double-sized issue without even noticing how long it was.
Maybe my speed of reading was because the art was engaging in moments of action but felt slightly anonymous on the whole; every character looked the same to me until they were wounded. Then at least I could identify them from where they were bleeding!
This sort of old west revenge plot with supernatural elements is exactly in Palmiotti’s wheelhouse, so we should be in for a lot of fun from this series – probably moreso than the main Gunslinger book, where he’s just another Spawn in the modern day.
Drawing Blood (2024) #7 (digital) – This is a semi-autobiographical series from the mind of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, following the story of an indie comics creator whose creation becomes bigger than he ever intended.
I was expecting more participation from Eastman since his name headlines the book and he’s drawing the covers, but he isn’t very involved in the interiors past co-plotting. The scripts are by David Avallone, who I am very fond of from his scripting on Elvira comics.
I found I had a hard time connecting with this book because it starts so far afield from the actual comics industry. We’re several years divorced from our main character selling the rights to his big moneymaker, and the first issue is mostly about his failed broadway show and a gun battle with some mobsters.
As the series progresses his relationship to his old IP becomes slightly more central, but to me it felt more like a book about a character on the fringes of organized crime than a book about a comic creator. This book is about comics like Breaking Bad is about teaching high school chemistry.
Ultimately, I think if you like this concept and are into that Breaking Bad vibe this will hit for you. If you want to stick closer to comic industry backstabbing, you should pick up Chip Zdarsky’s Public Domain, which tells a very similar story.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1982 / 2023) #313 (digital) – This is the G.I Joe title that continues to follow the original continuity of G.I. Joe from 1982 to the present day, as entirely penned by Larry Hama.
This cover has Destro and Cobra Commander in a knife fight, which instantly made me want to backtrack to see how the title has been since its return in late 2023 with issue #301. I’ve come and gone from this series a few times over every decade of my life, so I’m always thrilled to drop in.
This turned out to be more than just a drop in. I consumed the first arc in an unquenchable binge, only interrupted long enough to pen this post! Skybound Entertainment has really splurged on the art teams on this book, and as a result it feels like Hama has been unleashed to tell massive stories rather than the more-procedural brief tales he told while the book was published by IDW.
This begins with Cobra fractured – Serpentor and his progenitor Dr. Mindbender operate an island that’s half terrorist cove and half tourist trap, Cobra Commander is the mayor of his own Cobra town, Destro has retreated to his ancestral lands with Baroness, and a rogue AI created by the lot of them wheels and deals between the factions.
The series kicks off with a breathless issue of action in #301, with Serpentor effectively starting a zombie plague and immediately realizing zombies are much harder to control than Vipers. That leads to a series of moves and countermoves between Serpentor and Cobra Commander, with the Joes playing a reactionary role.
I think that’s why the series appeals to me so much. The Joes aren’t besieged, but they are still on the back foot as they play catchup to Serpentor’s plans and try to keep tabs on the multi-front war between the splintered forces of Cobra. Hama deftly connects the early action back to the end of his original Marvel run, and centers both familiar characters like Snake Eyes and some of his newer creations from the post-Marvel years.
Knowing that the second arc (out in trade last week) culminates in a war between Serpentor and Cobra Commander just makes me want to read more!
Hyde Street (2024) #3 (digital) – This is a horror series from Geoff Johns and his Ghost Machine Imprint, with art from his longtime DC Comics collaborator Ivan Reis.
The concept of Hyde Street is that it’s a Limbo-like road occupied by devilish denizens. that can be easily inserted into any city. Its inhabitants tempt sinners off of their main drag onto the side street and offer them punishment that might outstrip their actual sins, all in the name of moving up a leaderboard of the best soul collectors.
It’s a novel concept that allows the book to tell in-continuity stories for its cast of collectors while also maintaining an anthology vibe as it follows them and their victims individually.
Personally, the issue #1 pitch of that concept just wasn’t strong enough to keep me hooked. I’m a reader who loves a strong driving plot at the center of my comics, and the soul collector leader board didn’t feel like a strong enough element to me in a book that felt like it was going to be just a mildly scary anthology comic.
This feels like a Zenescope book with a slightly stronger art pedigree, but none of the awesome female protagonists who populate every Zenescope comic. But, if it like Johns’s cynical character and want to see them at their most evil, this is the book for you.
King Spawn (2021) #41 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. I’ve gone several years not fully understanding what this book is about, since it seems to star the same Al Simmons Spawn and Todd McFarlane’s main title.
To catch up for this post I read the first few issues and then caught up on the current arc. The big differentiator here is that this keeps a tight focus on a specific faction of former devils who are operating inside of the wider war on Earth with a specific eye towards corrupting Spawn and forcing his hand.
Maybe that’s why I enjoyed everything I read of this a lot more than the main Spawn title. It feels like a much tighter, more comprehensible narrative with clearer stakes. Last issue was a fine place to pick up, as it follows a former demon who has fallen on hard times to show how many different factions on Earth have turned against Spawn for their own reasons.
I’m surprised by how excited I am to catch up on the arcs between the start of the series and here. Unfortunately, original series script Sean Lewis is long gone, replaced with Rory McConville, who sometimes feels like he’s just putting a polish on McFarlane’s plot concepts. But, McFarlane is a better idea guy than a writer, so maybe that’s not a bad thing!
Nullhunter (2024) #4 (digital) – This series has a fascinating concept – the mythology of Hercules channeled through creator Michael Walsh (primarily known for horror in the past few years) into a space-faring cyberpunk setting.
This one fell into the category of “neither fish nor fowl” for me – it wasn’t entirely literal as a Hercules adaptation, but also it wasn’t very interesting as its own standalone space-punk story. It assumed slightly too much about my existing affinity for the Hercules myth and I didn’t end the issue curious to read more.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (2025) #1 (digital) – A brand new straight-up adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s original Oz novels from writer/artist Otis Frampton, who is mostly known to comic fans as the creator behind Oddly Normal (2024).
Rat City (2024) #10 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. This series from Erika Schultz is effectively Spawn 2099, but in a totally different multiversal timeline than the main Spawn book that only tangentially interacts with main continuity. If you like the Spawn lore but don’t want to stay mired in McFarlane’s labyrinthine present day of Angels and Demons, this is a terrific single-title alternative.
In this universe, a world on the brink of World War 3 is happy to repurpose its fallen soldiers into cyborgs for exploitation and profit only to churn them out when they don’t meet expectations. When the actions of main universe Spawn ripple out across reality, it makes waves in this future – and for one former solider, in specific.
I think Erica Schultz does a great job of keeping this moving without getting too mired in the future dystopia of it all, in part thanks to her sticking with such personable narration throughout. I love that it’s a bright neon world rather than a dull one. The bold, thick-lined art from Zé Carlos and intense colors from Jay David Ramos really work for me, even if this sort of alternate future story isn’t really my ideal trope.
Savage Dragon (1993) #275 (digital) – See Guide to Savage Dragon. Erik Larsen’s somewhat funny, somewhat Kirby-inspired, definitely sex-obsessed, and often a bit creepy long-running comic hits a spectacular 100-page milestone issue! For more on what this series has become, see my lengthy write-up earlier this month for issue #274.
The Tin Can Society (2024) #5 (digital) – This Rick Remender book for his “Giant Generator” imprint is effectively his indie take on Iron Man.
Void Rivals (2023) #16 (digital) – This was the launch book of the new Energon Universe of Transformers and G.I. Joe, as written by Robert Kirkman, Skybound Entertainment chief and the brain behind hits like Walking Dead and Invincible.
This is a fascinating little series because it’s neither a Transformers book nor a G.I. Joe book. Instead, it’s a sci-fi secret agent Romeo & Juliet, pitting a pair of emissaries from rival societies against one another until they realize how much they truly have in common. Along the way, it interacts with story elements from both Transformers and Joe, bringing in familiar pops of lore (and even the occasional character) from them both for excitement.
Personally, I think the book is a failure, but I think that’s entirely subjective because it’s how I feel about every Robert Kirkman comic book. This is too decompressed for me, and when Kirkman dangles morsels of plot development they immediately fizzle in the following issue.
I think there’s something intriguing to an intergalactic conspiracy that ties to the origins of Cybertron and how it connects to Cobra-La on Earth, but now that we have both of those books up and running in their own franchises I find this one to be a major bore.
W0rldtr33 (2023) #12 (digital) – This is the kickoff of a third arc of the seriously messed up dystopian world of this transgressive cyberpunk horror book from James Tynion IV, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire, and Aditya Bidikar.
I adored the first arc of this book. It was absolute balls-to-the-walls crazy shit from Tynion that was messed up in the same way as his original “Viral Trilogy” of books” as he examined the rise and fall of the internet, all in a response to a wicked sub-internet that runs alongside it that wants to infect our reality.
I think it’s fantastic that Tynion can still get away with such transgressive stuff as this – not just murder, but the commentary about 4Chan et al, despite being the biggest writer in all of comics. It started weird and just got weirder, with a huge mind-fuck in issue #5 at the close of the first arc.
What’s interesting to me is that arc really ended in a fine place. There was no burning need to continue. And, that showed a bit in the second arc, which I just binged today. The level of craft is still there, but the story felt a lot more administrative. Less mindfuck, more connect-the-dots. Now we have a better idea of who the players are and what’s at stake, but the entire six issues felt like they could’ve been a recap page or a dramatis personae rather than an arc.
I remain hooked on this world and want to know what’s next, but my excitement for a third arc has slightly cooled. If you’re going to pick this one up, you’ve got to start at the beginning.
That’s for Image Comics January 22 2025 new releases! What were you already pulling? And, did I convince you to check out anything new? Sound off in the comments below.
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