CREDIT: Image Comics
Rating: 4/5 – A Fascinating Premise About a Disease You May Want!
by ComicSpectrum senior reviewer Shawn Hoklas.
Unbeknownst to me, The Beauty was a previous Top Cow “Pilot Season” book. As part of Top Cow’s last pilot season in 2011, The Beauty won the contest that presents readers with a handful of new titles and properties, but since then hasn’t been seen. Now, creators Jeremy Huan and Jason A. Hurley have brought the title back to Image without the Top Cow banner and with a brand new premiere issue. I can see why The Beauty won that final season. It has a wonderful premise that really makes you question what would happen not only in our own society if this were real, but may also challenge your own ego.
The Beauty is an STD that has the opposite effect of what you’d expect. It’s an STD that actually makes you more attractive. As Huan and Hurley write in a particular caption, “fat melted away, thinning hair returned, skin blemishes faded”. It’s become extremely popular and has spread throughout the world quickly. Unfortunately it’s still a disease which has the world divided in its acceptance. Adding to the controversy, in this issue’s first act a woman riding a subway carrying the beauty STD suddenly and unexpectedly combusts from the inside, which may or may not be related to the disease. It’s here that we meet the two stars of the book, two detectives who are called in to investigate the death.
Huan and Hurley’s premise will grab you from the opening page and keep you hooked until the very end. My only complaint is that the story gives us the premise in such a short amount of time, then we dive into the smaller story of this woman’s death and investigation. I would have loved to have seen a bit more on how this “disease” has changed the world, pulling back and presenting a more global perspective. There’s just so much potential here and we get to see a bit of it, but there’s much more territory to be explored and I’m hoping they do so in future issues.
In the afterword, Huan and Hurley write that issues four and five are currently in progress so unlike their first time out with this idea, there’s plenty more to come and that’s a good thing. I’ve always been a fan of Huan’s art and combined with this fascinating idea, this is a book that feels as though it may jump to the top of the top of my reading pile each month. If you missed The Beauty like I did in 2011, don’t allow yourself to miss it again!
Reviewed by: Shawn Hoklas
(shawn@comicspectrum.com)
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