RETRO REVIEW: Near Death – Volume 1

Image Comics; $9.99

In 2012, Image Comics published the first of two volumes collecting the run of writer Jay Faerber and artist Simone Guglielmini’s Near Death, a crime comics series that has the power to stick with you a good bit after you’re done reading it.

It begins with a strong central character, a hired killer called Markham, and a premise that is both strong, and if explored properly, evolving. While following his chosen career path, Markham is shot and has a near death experience. Saved and patched up by a veterinarian acquaintance, he confronts what he saw when he hovered near death: all of the people he had killed, and they were awaiting his reckoning.

Markham comes out of the experience convinced he has to balance the scales. It’s not a particularly spiritual conversion nor does it mean the personality traits that led him to his life have suddenly disappeared.

As he goes on a journey to balance the scales, saving lives instead of taking them, he’s confronted both by people from his past who want to kill him and his own prior decisions. Great writing and solid art make it a very compelling read.

The collected edition is beautifully produced and has held up well in the nine years since its release. If you pick up this first trade, I firmly suspect you’ll get the second volume as well. I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t suggest picking up the individual issues instead as the text/letters pages are great reading, too.

– J.C. Vaughn