In 2018, Marvel Comics announced that it had secured the rights to publish new comics based on Robert E. Howard’s iconic fantasy hero Conan, setting writer Jason Aaron, artist Mahmud Asrar, and colorist Matthew Wilson at the helm of a new Conan the Barbarian comic series that launched in January 2019. While Marvel’s return to publishing Conan comics proved fleeting, the 12-issue run that began the short-lived new era proved popular enough with fans for Marvel to reunite the creative trio for the six-issue King Conan series that served as the finale to the publisher’s second tenure as custodian of the Cimmerian’s comic adventures in 2022.
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Bug Wars, published by Image Comics, sees Aaron, Asrar, and Wilson reuniting (with letterer Becca Carey entering the mix). Given their creative history, readers may expect Bug Wars to be a bit of Conan-esque sword-and-sorcery genre fare shrunk down to insect scale in an exercise similar to what Pixar’s A Bug’s Life did with the basic premise lifted from Akira Kurosawa’s classic Japanese historical drama, Seven Samurai. They wouldn’t be wrong, but that’s only half of the equation as Bug Wars also reimagines the premise of the family film classic Honey, I Shrunk the Kids as an ultra-violent power fantasy. In Bug Wars #1, one of these halves proves more compelling than the other.
Bug Wars #1 begins by establishing the setting of the Yard, which exists in the backyard of a human home. Here, beneath human notice, conflict rages as beetle berserkers attack an anthill kingdom like the Visigoths crashing against the walls of Rome, but all taking place at a scale that could fit in a terrarium.
But the Yard is, on the whole, bigger than any one battle or any pair of dysfunctional territorial neighbors. A row of six panels across a two-page spread introduces readers to the names of several factions existing in the Yard, conveyed in captions with text meant to appear handwritten, suggesting that these are places entities encountered and recorded by someone capable of communicating with humans. Yet, the artwork only shows us these havens of the Yard’s bug cultures as they appear to human eyes – Swarm City as a bit of overgrown foliage, the Wor Wraiders hovering around their familiar nests – which adds an alluring sense of mystery. In a matter of a few panels, the creative team builds a world that hints at exciting adventure, populated by sapient insects, that may stand alongside similarly premised stories like Mouse Guard and The Mice Templar (though less murine-centric, obviously).
Unlike those stories, Bug Wars features humans, and their involvement in the world of the Yard is central to the plot. The Slaymaker family (yes, Slaymaker) are moving into the home that abuts the Yard. It’s a tough move given that this is the same house where Sydney Slaymaker, the elder of two sons, discovered his entomologist father dead, having seemingly been partially eaten alive by the bugs he was studying. The death of the Slaymaker boys’ father affected Sydney and his younger brother, Slade Slaymaker, in opposite ways.
Having been traumatized, Sydney grew to fear and hate bugs passionately. Conversely, Slade, who can’t remember his father, seems to have inherited his fascination with bugs to connect with the father he never knew. While an interesting contrast, both brothers express themselves in over-the-top ways, the put-upon nerd Slade talking about virtually nothing other than bugs throughout the entire issue, while Sydney – whose long hair, jeans, and plain black t-shirt suggests an affinity for heavy metal – goes as far as to nail a bug to his front door as a threatening warning to, apparently, any other bug who may come looking for trouble (he even writes a note to accompany the morbid display, in case the would-be insect toughs who pass by are literate in English). These one-note characterizations, along with some gruesome panels and blunt use of profanity for emphasis, make the human half of the Bug Wars equation feel somewhat juvenile.
But the crux of Bug Wars is where the human and insect worlds meet. What Bug Wars #1 tantalizing does not say outright is that the Slaymaker father knew of and interacted with the Yard, opening up the possibility that he was killed with intent, and now one of his sons is following in his footsteps. From the issue’s narration, we learn there’s much we don’t know about the boys’ father and the world of the Yard and are primed to discover those truths as the series progresses, turning the premise into something not far from Tom King, Bilquis Evely, and Matheus Lopez’s recently acclaimed fantasy series Helen of Wyndhorn though the tones are quite different, with Bug Wars being a more muscular affair, visually, with a focus on gory detail, it’s first issue punctuated by a moment of violent empowerment. Though we can’t know, one could be charitable and assume that’s the point, and as Bug Wars continues, it’ll chart its hero’s maturation as he reckons with the grisly power he has come to possess.
Bug Wars looks to be a story about how the absence of a father and the secrets they once kept can change the trajectory of a son’s life. There’s potential in that, but how the creators marry the two worlds they’ve introduced here, and whether they can keep from overindulging in puerile violence, remains to be seen.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Published by Image Comics
On February 12, 2025
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Mahmud Asrar
Colors by Matthew Wilson
Letters by Becca Carey
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Toei Animation
