Retcon #1

Writer: Matt Nixon
Art and Cover: Toby Cypress
Published by Image Comics

Everything you know about the invasion of Iraq is a lie.

Instead of trying to find weapons of mass destruction, the US military was attempting to stop Saddam Hussein from utilizing genies! Every time a dictator uses the supernatural to take over the world, our government sends in a special unit of paranormal operatives to end the threat. Then the Pentagon retcons the events to the media as military actions!

When a retired alcoholic member of these paranormal forces, suffering from PTSD, falls off the wagon, he threatens to expose the whole operation. That’s where Brandon Ross, a former member of the Paranormal Ops, comic in. Ross accepts the mission to bring the rogue agent down in hopes of expunging his criminal record. But when civilian lives are to be used as collateral damage without thought to perpetuate the retcon lie, Ross too goes rogue. And that’s when things start to go pear-shaped…

The first issue of Retcon is one that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Writer Matt Nixon (Motel Hell) crafts a story that I was hooked as soon as they mentioned genies. That was like page 3 or 4. But with a name like Retcon, I know that the history changes of the government is just the tip of the iceberg. I expect future issues to dive deep into the conspiracy of that the American history we believe in so dearly didn’t really occur as we were told.

The artwork was a different story. It’s very, very rough stuff. The illustrations of Blue Estate’s Toby Cypress are dirty as art can be. There’s nothing clean here. Part of that works because the story itself is a about the mess of lies made by conspirators and generals. However, it’s also done in such a way, that I’m not fully convinced what I was supposed to see is what actually happens. If I’m right, then I think I’ve got a problem with Retcon.

While I want to stick with this series, I’m going to wait until the trade before I go further. There's an extensive interview in the back of the comic. There,  the series creators Nixon and Cyrpess promise to reboot the story often in a sense that Retcon is like a gritty version of Groundhog Day. I really fear that I am going to miss out on so much if I wait every month for the next chapter.This comic is going to require re-reading previous issues to keep details, which I expect to be retconned frequently, straight. Truly, this series might work best as a multi-volume graphic novel, released quarterly in larger chunks than a 32-page monthly.

Retcon is a series that has great promise.

But it’s going to be such a head trip that the monthly format might hurt sales. I wouldn’t even get attached to any of these characters as by next month, they might not really existed anymore. By having chunks of this story be retconned monthly might anger some to readers. I foresee it get to to the point that the readers might just not only lost in the plot. They may up and lose interest in the book over time. We shall see...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Article originally published September 14, 2017 on outrightgeekery.com.