#86 = REDCOAT #8 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, December 2024)
A stand-alone story with Simon Pure/Redcoat encountering the Bender family of serial killers in 1873 is set-up perfectly by the creative team.
Violent. Brutal. Good thing Simon is immortal. A good palate cleanser after the intensity of the first story arc.
The final page is a full panel preview/teaser of Civil War character The Northerner who will appear in a future storyline. He apparently knows of Redcoat and Geiger as well, so most likely he is another immortal time traveler. THREE AND THREE-QUARTER STARS.
#87 = REDCOAT #9 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, January 2025)
Bryan Hitch’s art just seems to get better and better on this title.
This issue takes place in 1816 and is another one-shot story detailing the friendship between Simon Pure and John Chapman a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed. During a campout together where much hard apple cider was consumed, Redcoat’s powers inadvertently create the world’s biggest apple, massive in size. Also massive is the giant worm that crawls out of it. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
#88 = REDCOAT #10 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, March 2025) Redcoat is in the West of 1890 and is caught cheating in a card game and chased out of town. He dies after trying to escape by jumping aboard a moving train.
He wakes up and finds himself in another Western town and witnesses a crowd gathered around a sharp-shooting demonstration. He meets Annie Oakley and engages in a shooting competition with her. Soon after they team up to bust up a gang of outlaws who take children hostage.
Another entertaining one-shot story in which Redcoat matures a little. “Still, that day in Memphis stuck with me. Annie Oakley may have been the best shot in the West, but she hit me with something no one else ever had . . . Hope . . .” THREE AND THREE-QUARTER STARS.
#89 = REDCOAT #11 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, April 2025) “But the mysterious Northerner hunts Simon through time for reasons yet unknown . . .”
1864: Columbus, Georgia . . . A Confederate corporal isn entrusted to deliver a satchel of military intelligence to admin, a parcel given him by a mysterious secessionist called The Cobbler. A slave girl overhears, steals the parcel, and bolts. She is rescued from pursuit by The Northerner, who promptly burns the contents of the satchel.
Meanwhile Redcoat is making a living delivering military intelligence to the Union Army. He meets The Cobbler, who offers him a job to deliver a package to the Confederate commander of the Tennessee army. The Northerner finally catches up to him, warning that “if America unravels, Mr. Pure . . . so do you.”
Another gorgeously illustrated issue with authentic detail. A nice start to this story arc featuring The Northerner. THREE AND THREE-QUARTER STARS.
#90 = REDCOAT #12 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, May 2025) Part Two of The Northerner team-up. The jibes, insults and distrust between the two begins here as The Northerner introduces himself to Simon: “I know exactly what you are, Mr. Pure. . . One of the ever-living, the only one who fell into his stolen power instead of earning it.” He wants what The Cobbler gave to Redcoat. When offers $400, Simon gives in and lets him burn it.
In the next scene, we learn that The Cobbler is a time-traveler as he is seen eating a Snickers candy bar. When Union soldiers attempt to bring him in for questioning, he guns them down with a machine gun. Which leads to Simon and The Northerner uncovering his master plan, which is to furnish the Confederate Army with automatic weapons from the future.
This lead me to believe that Geoff Johns is familiar (as am I) with the 1992 science-fiction/alternative history novel THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH by Harry Turtledove. In that story, a white supremacist militia from the 20th Century time-travels to 1864 to furnish General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army with AK-47s - which means the South is victorious and Lee becomes President, and as a result - - changing history. John’s plot device is right out of the pages of this novel (one of my favorite alternative history reads). THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
#91 = REDCOAT #13 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, July 2025) I haven’t mentioned this before, but every single issue of REDCOAT features a cool wraparound cover by Bryan Hitch. This issue is notable for the various depictions of Redcoat and The Northerner trying to maintain their balance atop floating clocks while a giant Cobbler menaces them.
This is the final chapter of the Redcoat/Northerner team-up, along with a curious young orphan who makes better decisions in critical moments than both of them. They are hot on the trail of The Cobbler, trying to stop him before he delivers munitions to the South and changes the outcome of the Civil War.
More squabbles between the two, with the Northerner repeating his position that Redcoat never chooses a side in a skirmish/conflict, just an opportunity to enrich himself. They argue throughout the issue, but in the end Simon proves to have principles as well as a heart.
Lots of gunplay, explosions and before it ends in more blue energy The Northerner finds himself in a different timeline, with the whereabouts of the defeated Cobbler unknown. FOUR STARS.
#92 = REDCOAT #14 by Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch (Image Comics, September 2025) Another one-shot story; and this is just as good as the others.
It’s August 24, 1814 - - a notable day in history and by blind luck Simon Pure/Redcoat happens to be visiting with the White House cook in Washington, DC just before British Admiral General George Cockburn gets his revenge by burning down the building.
Simon is attempting to escape the flames when he encounters soldiers who mistake him for the enemy. He manages to fight his way through, only to see a woman running towards the flames. He attempts to stop her and finds out she is trying to save a portrait of George Washington. The woman is Dolly Madison, wife of then President James Madison.
In the backstory a thunderstorm washes D.C. later that morning and an ethereal George Washington shows up talking to himself about the Unknown War (foreshadowing the Ghost Machine timeline) and cursing Simon Pure for messing with his plans. Is he alive or a ghost? I’m assuming he is the First Ghost mentioned on the cover. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
No comments:
Post a Comment