Review: INJECTION Volume 1

INJECTION, VOL. 1
IMAGE COMICS – @ImageComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Warren Ellis
ARTIST: Declan Shalvey
COLORS: Jordie Bellaire
LETTERS: Fonografiks
ISBN: 978-1-63215-479-8; paperback (October 2015)
120pp, Color, $9.99 U.S.

Rated M/Mature

Injection is a currently ongoing comic book series published by Image Comics.  Injection is created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Declan Shalvey; the book is colored by Jordie Bellaire.  Ellis, Shalvey, and Bellaire were the creative team behind Marvel Comics' 2014 relaunch of its Moon Knight comic book, producing the first six issues.  According to publicity material for this series, Injection is a “serialized sequence of graphic novels,”  and focuses on five people who have to save the world from being too weird to support human life, a situation they apparently created.

Injection, Volume 1 opens at Sawling Hospital.  There, we meet Professor Maria Kilbride, who is being castigated by a stern older woman.  Through a flashback, we learn that Kilbride was part of something called the “Cultural Cross-Contamination Unit.”  Her colleagues were Robin Morel, a “Cunning Man” (old-timey Brit shaman) and esotericist; Simeon Winters, a British spy and strategist with MI6; Vivek Headland, a logician and ethicist; and Brigid Roth, a programmer, coder, and all-around computer chick.  How did these five individuals poison the 21st Century?  They created “Injection,” and then, they went and injected it.

At a slim 20 pages, Injection #1 was all about set-up and vague introductions.  Still, I found it intriguing, because every first issue of a Warren Ellis comic book intrigues me, even if, in the long run, the series does not pan out to the deliciousness promised by the first issue.  That rarely happens.  In the case of Moon Knight: From the Dead, the Ellis-Shalvey-Bellaire intro arc of Moon Knight, the first issue was average, but the rest of the series took off from there

Injection does not quite explode from the first issue's intriguing premise.  Rather, each issue is intriguing in its own way; put the first five issues together and you get a fabulous first act/graphic novel.  Are there people that you just like to here talk, dear reader?  Well, Injection is that comic book that you just want to sit down and read as long as you can stand it.

In a way, Injection, which touches upon multiple genres, from science fiction and techno-thriller to weird fiction and horror, is kind of like a superhero comic book.  Instead of punches, conflicts are engaged and resolved via a battle between what is known and what needs to be known.  Knowledge will save the day, and even Kilbride and her smartest guys in the room need to either recover knowledge they already have or learn something new.  That's a punch to the status quo of heroic comics – a blow mainstream American comic books need.

So yes, I am highly recommending Injection.  It's the shot in the arm your reading list needs

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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