The Quarter Bin

We snuck a glance at an advance copy of this week’s First Born: Aftermath from Top Cow. Acting as a primer for upcoming tales in the Top Cow universe, does the book make you want to read more? Find out what we thought after the jump.

Click on any picture to view it in Expand-O-Scope, brought to you by Gamervision.com.

First Born: Aftermath
Writers: Ron Marz, Phil Hester
Artist: Stjepan Sejic, Lee Moder, Ryan Sook
Cover: Stjepan Sejic, Ryan Sook

Prior to this year, there hadn’t been too many primer books that consisted of brand new material. Earlier this spring we saw the release of DC Universe #0, and while it was mildly entertaining, it didn’t exactly provide new readers with easy to follow introductions. This Wednesday sees the release of Top Cow’s primer, First Born: Aftermath, and I can tell you without fail it does a better job of introducing the universe than that of the distinguished competition.

Consisting of three stories, two written by Marz and one by Hester, the book does a nice job introducing the type of world a reader can expect when opening a Top Cow book. Two of the tales are Darkness-centric, and Hester does a nice job expanding upon the legacy of the Darkness powers while tying it in to the current continuity without alienating newcomers. Marz’s opening tale serves as more of a table-setter for Hester, and does a good job establishing the differences between the real world and the Top Cow world. The third tale in this book concerns the Magdalena, and here Marz shows his chops when writing strong women. After reading his Witchblade and now this tale, it’s hard to see how anyone could ever mistake him for a misogynist.

All three stories are superbly rendered. Sejic’s realistic style does well in the intro to lull you into a false sense of security. Lee Moder does the quality of work he is so known for on Hester’s history lesson. Perhaps the publisher knew to save the best for last as Ryan Sook really puts an extraordinary amount of work in every panel of his take on Magdalena. It saddens me he’s not on a monthly. That’s the price you have to pay to see Sook’s top notch interior art though. And if the man’s work on Zatanna didn’t prove he had what it took to portray strong female leads, the pages here will. Do some more interiors soon Ryan.

The book does well to introduce the concepts in the Top Cow universe, and should provide both new and old readers with some interesting stories. How much of this will tie into this summer’s Broken Trinity? I guess we’ll all just have to pick it up to find out. If you’ve got a little extra cash during this light week, do yourself a favor and try this out.