Just when it was safe to leave the asylum . . .

Image is going big with the new series, Injection.  Poised between The X-Men and The X-Files, Injection is chock full of mystery and potential.  Opening a new world is never an easy task – do you build slowly and hope the audience jumps in?  Do you shout as loud and hard as you can and grab them?  Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey seem to be fans of the first approach, presenting their world without pushing, letting the reader get drawn in.  It’s a subtle and confident approach, and, so far, it would seem they’ll be rewarded for it.

Weird happens, and in comics and anime it can happen big, loud, and completely in your face.  Standouts like Miyazaki create interest in the world itself, letting it reveal as interesting enough in its own right, and that’s what Ellis seems to be doing here.  We meet characters in two major points, once before a crucial moment and again at some undisclosed point later.  It’s obvious that this will be the focal point of the slow draw, but there’s no urgency to get at it just yet.  I find it refreshing to be allowed to take my time in the web of the unknown without having to barrel towards some arbitrary point.

Shalvey sets a very “Brittish mystery” tone, much like Sherlock or Hot Fuzz (Yeah, I never thought I’d have a comparison for those two either . . . ain’t life fun?)  There’s some quintessential otherness to the form, and it seems to redouble the draw of the characters by giving us glimpses of things that could seem half imagined.  Whatever this world turns out to be, it will take its sweet time in getting there and will be awfully interesting to look at.

Sherlock fans will definitely find themselves at home in this issue, and fans of old English tales will do the same.  There’s a mystery as deep as the rocks themselves here, and it should be a rousing good time figuring it out.

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