Impossible Jones #1

Impossible Jones #1

Scout Comics 2021

Written & Inked by Karl Kesel

Pencilled by David Hahn

Coloured by Tony Aviña

Lettered by Comicraft

Explosive first issue! The grin gritty origin of comics' newest sensation! A thief gets powers, is mistaken for a superhero... and runs with it! With no intention of giving up her criminal ways, mind you! (With these powers? Are you crazy?!) All she has to do is fool all of the people all of the time! It's not impossible - it's Impossible Jones!

It’s a Batman Adventures style, what if Plastic Man was a front for Eel O'Brian, that kind of series and this idea got me before I even opened the first page of this. Colourful costumed heroes and villains running amok and it is completely and utterly a sensational new series that centres around a female lead. I’m really impressed with this debut issue though I shouldn’t be because not only is Karl an industry veteran but he’s also a storytelling genius. He knows how to craft a story and bring the characters to life and he’s got a wicked sense of humour to boot. I do love the throwback style of bringing us an origin story right off the bat as well. This is the kind of book that this works well with and it amplifies the concept of the story beautifully.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job in bringing us their personalities to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story we’re pulled in exceptionally well.

The way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge and grow is executed exceptionally well. I like how we see the layers within the story open up avenues to explore and how we see them add such depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is exceptionally well achieved.

I love the interior artwork here. The linework is strong, clean and crisp and how the varying weights are being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see throughout is incredibly well rendered. I love that we see backgrounds being utilised so prevalently throughout the book as they enhance and expand the moments beautifully. They also work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story extremely well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a brilliant eye for how colour works. That giant red lightning energy that changes the hues and tones with its light is really something to see.

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This is a great debut issue. We get a great look at Impossible Jones, what motivates her and how she got her powers. What we still have to see is her being mistaken for a heroine and how she decides that this facade is one that is going to work for her as she moves forward in life. I love the heroes that we are introduced to in this issue as well and as much as it will make some cringe I wanna see a solo Polecat or Even Steven story. This is so incredibly well written with some brilliant characterisation alongside these wonderful interiors that bring this to life exceptionally well.