Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Michael Dialynas
Colourist: Josan Gonzalez
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

‘The woods, the woods! Take her to the woods!’ Or so goes the punchline to a very old and, if only I could remember the rest of it, what is almost certainly a very non-PC joke.

The Woods #24 is nothing like that. The Woods #24 is the latest offering from James Tynion IV and not one I’ve come across before. Despite the rather interesting cover, I wasn’t expecting a great deal from this comic book. To be fair, what sort of imagination do you expect from a man whose own parents were so unimaginative that they gave him a name that had been used three times already?

Luckily, James, the fourth of his name, is bucking that particular trend and you only have to look at his work for DC on Batman, Talon and Red Hood and The Outlaws to know we have a serious talent on our hands here. Serious enough for BOOM! Studios to guarantee The Woods a full 36 issue run from the outset at least. Coming in two-thirds of the way into this saga of the brother’s Casey and Calder

 Macready probably isn’t the best place to start in The Woods #24. One, or maybe both, of the Macready boys love Karen who may be, or maybe was, a Prom Queen or possibly a sword-wielding warrior woman in another dimension who is in serious need of rescuing from bad guys who ride weird, prehistoric creatures and make cryptic pronouncements like: ‘Life is a distraction . . . but the endgame will be glorious.’ Remember I said something about a lack of imagination? Forget it. James Tynion IV has imagination in spades and this is going to make one heck of a good TPB one day

The Woods #24 may not be the best jumping on point unless you’re into retro-fitting plot and character to make sense of it all. Or, as I would suggest, invest in those back issues, you will not be disappointed.

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker