This week’s main review is Freddie The Fix, the one-shot comic from Garth Ennis and Mike Perkins that launches a new imprint at Image Comics. Plus, the Wednesday Comics Team has its usual rundown of the new #1s, endings and other notable issues from non-Big 2 publishers, all of which you can find below… enjoy!

Freddie The Fix

Writer: Garth Ennis
Art: Mike Perkins
Colors: Mike Spicer & Andy Troy
Letters: Rob Steen
Publisher: Image Comics/Ninth Circle

Review by Clyde Hall

The motion picture business is based on odds longer than most lotteries. As in comics, when all the talents gel to become more than the sum of any single part, it’s money-manufacturing magic. It’s also rare. With the sums, personalities, and peccadillos involved, monied interests like producers and studios can hardly be blamed for taking precautions when it comes to their image. In fact, the job of a fixer is keeping those very interests blameless no matter how corrupt and ego-enabling they are.

Freddie is that sort of fixer, and he has an almost magical ability to make incriminating things disappear. Situations. Photographs. Lawsuits. And in this Garth Ennis one-shot, Freddie needs mystic-level mess managing abilities because he specializes in celebrities and notables of a supernatural bent. In his world, monsters exist and not just the industry standards-and-practices types.

One of the big eldritch stars, a key component to the success of two film franchises, called the Bogeyman has been found dead in his human form. The VIPs with lots to lose have already greased the Hollywood machine to eradicate any unsavory elements regarding the matter. But this one requires extra care and special overview. Freddie’s kind of unique perspective, one that peers below surface levels and makes certain the Bogeyman’s distasteful dalliances remain dead and buried with him.

It should be easy money, but of course it’s not. And Freddie finds himself dealing with supernatural elements of the LA vampire scene, unionized longshore workers, and even a Saurian religious organization.

In short, it’s exactly the kind of dirty deeds tale Ennis reveals in. This is a one-shot playing to all his strengths as a writer, his narrative hardboiled PI meets Sweet Smell of Success and expertly marinating in a nightmare noir reality. True, there are foreshadowing bits which play heavier than Ernest Borgnine eyebrows. In lesser scriptwriting hands, though, such clever The Two Jakes homage and John Huston wit could all go easily awry. But Ennis’s are Allstate level comics-writing claws you can trust, and he proves it here once more.

Mike Perkins embraces the visual elements of all the film reels mentioned and sucks the marrow from them in bringing this storyline to undead life. His Hollywood Hills as colored by Mike Spicer and Andy Troy radiate sunny CA, yet the seedy, shadowed side of the street feels just as real. Their artwork reveals a brimstone bedrock, gremlins beneath the glitz, as horrors are revealed.

Presiding over all the layouts and panel work, however, is Perkins’s facial expressions. Whether it’s the clueless stare of shapeshifters destined for a tragic end, a T-Rex’s fang-baring while quoting Draculaor a vampire’s fury at forced sunbathing, he captures emoting moments masterfully. The cinematic elements of those panels, namely the framing and the closeups, also serve the tinsel town setting well.

The first Ninth Circle imprint title blends the horror and humor of showbiz that’s happy bedfellows with unseemly elements of the supernatural. It saves tons on special effects budgets, after all! Freddie the Fix gives us a Hollywoodland willing to sell its soul, perhaps more literally than in real life, for success…even if it comes with sanguine stains. It’s the cost of avoiding real box office bloodletting, some would say, and worth every drop. Freddie May disagrees. But he’s an excellent guide for discovering what ambition is willing to place on the altar of celebrity. It’s a screening of opulent tragedy with a short subject comedy, and it lets the reader decide where one begins and the other ends.

Wednesday Comics Reviews

Missing on the Moon #1 (Mad Cave Studios): Neon noir is a fitting description as we’re introduced to troubled histories and troubled characters surrounding this mystery written by Cory Crater. Off the strength of his actions in the first few pages, wow the protagonist Daniel Schwinn is certainly a terrible person. Heinous acts for money are still heinous; the difference is just that they’re compensated. Schwinn, a private investigator, is up to be well compensated for something apparently much less dubious as he’s contracted to find the missing child of a billionaire for what should be a pretty hefty reward. Making his way around the moon from streets filled with homeless people down on their luck to seedy beautifully lit clubs and the outside of the oxygenated dome housing civilization, this is a gorgeous book to look at thanks to Damian Couciero’s art, Patricio Delpeche’s colors and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s lettering. What makes this all the most striking is the choice of location; the moon in 1997, a neon filled bastion of capitalism with a stark divide within its populace and an airlock system that serves to get rid of the people at the wrong end of that divide. This first issue is brimming with character and atmosphere and I think it’s worth your time. —Khalid Johnson
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2024) #2 (IDW Publishing): Arriving the same week as the animated show’s series finale, Star Trek: Lower Decks (2024) #2 brings the promise of continuing laugh-out-loud adventures for the crew of the USS Cerritos — in comics form. Seriously: I laughed out loud multiple times over the course of this issue, including at the hilarious epilogue page (no spoilers). Another highlight of the issue was T’Lyn. While it didn’t make sense with the timeline, I missed the inclusion of T’Lyn in writer Ryan North’s original three-issue Lower Decks miniseries. But fortunately, our favorite Vulcan science bestie (24th century edition) is making up for lost time in this issue. Building off of the first issue, this second issue continues the trend of pulling heavily from legacy Franchise series — but as we all just learned from “Fissure Quest,” that’s not always a bad thing. However since variety es the spice of life, never fear: the teaser promises that the third issue doesn’t rely so heavily on callbacks. As with the first issue, this one was well-illustrated by Derek Charm, featured excellent lettering by Clayton Cowles and design & production by Johanna Nattalie. And once again, my biggest wish for future issues is the return of back matter. Don’t make me beg… we need every ounce of Lower Decks content we can get. Fortunately, this series is off to an excellent start. —Avery Kaplan
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #5 (IDW Publishing): Jason Aaron’s work on the new volume of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been an exciting new direction for the title over the last few months with a gritty tone and melodrama that harkens back to the original Mirage comics. After finally reuniting the Turtles briefly in issue 4, Aaron steps away to focus on new villain Hieronymus Hale, the New York City District Attorney with a vendetta against mutants. This issue gives us background on the nasty politician and how the Foot Clan ended up as his personal police force. The Boys artist Darick Robertson Draws this one with inking assists from Norm Rapmund, and their thin, sketchy lines and Robertson’s ability to reveal the ugly heart of his characters through exaggerated, bloviating faces is a perfect fit for the story. Hale is presented as a pathetic, petty man, and a convenient tool for the Foot to seize power. Like the previous four issues, Aaron’s script is an intimate, dark and brooding affair. Tony Aviña’s colors are mutated and desaturated, and give the issue a washed out look. It might be an intentional decision to emphasize Hale’s unpleasant aura but the ultimate effect is not appealing. Shawn Lee’s letters take Aaron’s heavy narration and weaves it through the art naturally. This is the weakest chapter of the series so far, in part because Hale is so loathsome, but it begins to tie together some of the threads that Aaron has been laying out. Next month promises the four brothers finally reunited and a new regular artist, and this feels like delaying that payoff, even with the reintroduction of Casey Jones and the cliffhanger ending. A chapter necessary, perhaps, but likely reads better once collected. —Tim Rooney

The Prog Report

2000AD 2413 (Rebellion Publishing): This week’s issue is the special 100-page X-Mas Mega Special, wherein most stories are either self-contained or starting something totally new. It’s a great read, start to finish, and a wonderful way to end the year as the magazine goes on break until Jan. 8. Rather than single out a story I found interesting (as I typically do here), I’d just like to say that I’ve had an excellent year keeping up with the Prog. This is the first full calendar year where I’ve read it week-to-week without missing an issue, and it was one of the highlights of my week. As digital comics platforms have degenerated or collapsed, it’s nice to have this excellent and thoughtful set of comics available digitally each week. If you’re looking to jump into a new regular comic in 2025, maybe consider giving this a shot? The digital edition is an absurdly reasonable $1.99, and you can nab it here! —Zack Quaintance