7 Underrated Image Comics Nobody Talks About

Some of the best storytelling in comics can be found in the indies and Image Comics is the home of some of the best of the indies. The largest indie comic publisher, Image puts out a wide range of comics crossing just about every genre you can imagine and taking on diverse topics, characters, and themes. With everything from superheroes to aliens to pure fantasy and more, there is nothing that Image’s creator-owned books don’t do.

But while some Image books like Saga or Monstress are massively popular and part of the pop culture conversation and others, like Free Planet, are redefining sci-fi, there are others that are just as good but are criminally underrated. These seven Image Comics deserve to be considered among the greats — and we think if you read them for yourself, you’ll agree.

7) A Haunted Girl

Originally published in 2023, A Haunted Girl is just four issues long but is a powerful series despite its brief length. Written by the father-daughter team of Ethan Sacks and Naomi Sacks, A Haunted Girl tells a story in which the fate of the lives of everyone on Earth falls to a teenage girl who is herself struggling with whether she wants to live. The story follows 16-year-old Cleo whose struggles with anxiety and depression has led her to suicidal ideation. After leaving the hospital, she’s struggling to return to her old life, but the struggles are just starting as she finds herself dealing with increasingly terrifying ghosts, causing her to question if she’s losing her grip on reality or if something much worse is really going on.

The book uses a horror story to frame the real-life horror and struggle that can come with anxiety and depression and was inspired by Naomi’s own struggles with mental health. Ethan Sacks worked with his daughter to create a story to help others going through similar struggles. Outside of being a moving approach to the challenges of depression and anxiety, it’s also just a good story that everyone should read.

6) Manifest Destiny

A reimagining of Lewis & Clark’s 1804 expedition as a monster-hunting adventure, Manifest Destiny comes from Chris Dingess and Matthew Roberts and is the unusual comic that manages to blend historical fiction with both horror and fantasy and make it work really well all while also including a bit of historical critique and thoughtful, albeit dark, satire. It’s also surprisingly fun at times with all of the monsters and cryptids that show up in the American frontier, but where the series really excels is in its examination of how isolation and the wilderness strips away the facade of civility.

The book had a somewhat inconsistent release schedule that really didn’t do it any favors, but it’s very much an underappreciated gem that if you have the chance to sit down and read all at once thanks to the collected trades, you absolutely should.

5) The Weatherman

The Weatherman is a wild, intense, and at times very thought-provoking comic. The story, from creators Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox, follows Nathan Bright, a popular and seemingly regular weatherman on terraformed Mars who has a great life. However, he become the most wanted man alive and the target of a galaxy-wide manhunt when he’s accused of carrying out the worst terrorist attack in human history, one that nearly wiped out the entire population of Earth. There’s one problem though: Nathan has no memory of being terrorist mastermind Ian Black.

Over the course of its full run, The Weatherman is an excellent story of what things we break in the name of so-called justice and what redemption really means. It is, at times, a difficult read, but it’s one that is worth it and will stick with you long after you put the book down. There’s a lot to dig into with this series and it’s well worth the ride.

4) Crowded

Crowded actually had quite a bit of buzz when it debuted in 2018.  From creators Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, and Christopher Sebela, Set in the very near future, Crowded follows Charlie Ellison, a woman leaving a normal life in a world of apps and job shares until she’s suddenly targeted by a million-dollar campaign on Reapr, a crowdfunding app to fund assassinations. Now hunted by all of Los Angeles, Charlie hires the lowest rated bodyguard on the Dfend app, Vita. The pair have just 30 days to either outlive the campaign or figure out who wants Charlie dead.

Crowded is a wild ride of a comic that is, at times, uncomfortably too close to the world we actually live in. With some rich satire and dark commentary on a society that is growingly apathetic, economically divided, and fixated on social media and technology, even with some of the more outlandish twists the book takes, Crowded is must-read material. It’s genuinely a shame more people don’t still talk about this one.

3) The Power Fantasy

Of all the books on this list, The Power Fantasy is actually still ongoing — at least for now — and is among the best books out there. From creators Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard, The Power Fantasy is a unique take on the idea of superpowered beings walking amongst us. It’s been compared to Watchmen in some respects, but it’s not exactly that at all. The series centers around six superpowered people on Earth and the issue at hand is that the survival of the planet relies on those six people never coming into conflict. As you can guess, that means there are some complicated power dynamics within the story and the series has reached the point where conflict has arrived — don’t worry, we’re not getting into spoilers.

The Power Fantasy was met with a lot of hype when it first debuted, but things have quieted since, so much so that the series’ creators have even taken to the letter to readers in issue #12 that the current arc could be the series’ last if things don’t change. Despite that, The Power Fantasy is a really strong series with a unique superhero mythology and rich, complex storytelling that elevates the superhero genre.

2) Bitch Planet

Another series that started out with a lot of buzz that doesn’t get talked about much anymore — save for people who keep hoping it will come back — is Bitch Planet. The series from creators Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro was technically never cancelled (hence the hope it will come back) and ran for 10 issues. Set in a world where women who have been imprisoned for being “non-compliant” — which covers everything including being too fat, too brown, too outspoken, too queer, transgender, and more — are sent to an off-planet prison called the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, the story follows former athlete Kam who is forced to form a squad to play gladiator-style games to entertain privileged men back on Earth. But these are non-compliant women and they aren’t just going to give in.

The book examines exploitation and oppression, particularly through characters with different degrees of privilege and with characters of different races and genders. It’s a story that is much a commentary on the way the patriarchy holds women down as it is how women uphold the patriarchy and it’s just very well done.

1) Gospel

Released in 2022, the five-issue miniseries Gospel from creator Will Morris is one of Image’s more deeply underrated books. Set during the reign of Henry VIII and featuring art that feels like it could have come from Hayao Miyazaki, Gospel is a story that examines the power of stories and the truth behind the powerful tales. Gospel’s story follows Matilde, a restless hero who finds not opportunity but the devil come knocking, thrusting her and her friend, the storyteller Pitt, into a quest for answers — including the biggest question of them all: “who am I?”

Gospel beautifully takes the threads of medieval history, the hero’s journey, issues of faith, and adventure and weaves them into something larger. It questions the nature of storytelling and the meaning of stories as well as the intersections of where themes and questions collide. It’s a short series, but it packs so much into its run. It’s a book that just needs to be read, savored, and then talked about so much more.

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