May 8

REVIEW: Geiger (2024) #1 - Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh (Image Comics)

After the events in 'Geiger' Volume 1, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank have wasted no time in bringing us back to a world swallowed in the darkness of a grim post-apocalyptic future. A darkness that blends in with the idea of westerns being the final frontier in mankind's exploration, discovery and loss of self.

Geiger #1 starts in a small town, owing much to westerns that were splayed on our television screens from the 40s-60s, but this is no Bonanza as a small town, currently inhabited by bandits that will take what they can and who they can is determined to take this month's penance in the form of abducting the town's children. Prompting an urgent response from a lone hooded stranger you will quickly recognise as Geiger taking out the bandits in an explosive display of radiation enhanced prowess. It's during this scene which Gary Frank and Brad Anderson's illustration and coloring blasts out from the page, creating this all-encompassing atmosphere of a world that could best be described as if the Terminator franchise was combed through with the colours of the short-lived Jericho tv show.

After quickly dispatching all of the bandits concerned, he leaves the town with their corpses, bearing radioactive pressed hand and fist prints, which is almost an ode to heroes of a bygone age like The Shadow and The Ghost Who Walks. Trudging through what's left of North America with his two-headed pet wolf, Geiger senses they're being followed and after a Knight (see: Ghost Machine #1) reveals himself and wanting to be like him (selfless and helping people), they are ambushed by heavily armed shock troops.

It's in the moments after in which Geoff Johns goes into the dark recesses of the mind, where no hope lies, as Geiger leaves him alone in the wasteland, explains to the Knight to stop looking for hope. Causing the Knight's world to crumble and we see a flashback of his family before the fall of the great apocalypse which destroyed America. Pain so deep and insufferable that he mounts his sword on a pile of rocks and attempts to impale himself before Geiger returns and interrupts the Knight's suicide attempt. Saying that he can come with him, if only to lead Geiger to the man who was once like him, who has since been cured. A great move by Johns as the Knight fits the duality of providing emotional heartstrings and the audience surrogate as the reader ventures forth with them on this nuclear polluted journey.

After the first volume of Geiger, I was apprehensive at what Johns and Frank were going to throw at us. But this first issue of the second volume of Geiger gives us all the action you'd expect in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, without delving into the ridiculous or satirical, yet still firing off on all cylinders with the emotional tie-ins - giving this comic book a definitive lived-in experience. Geiger has all the ferocity of Mad Max: Fury Road combined with the lamenting sadness of a world lost to fire and flame in The Book of Eli.

I should be surprised and yet, given the pedigree of Geoff John's and Gary Frank's body of work, I'm incredibly satisfied with this post-apocalyptic super heroic madness!