I thought I have seen it all in the comic world. Out of all the Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, and bizarre Indie titles, I thought you couldn’t get stranger in the industry. However, this week once again reminded me how wrong I am because let me tell you my friends:

Xombi is the strangest comic I have laid eyes on in quite some time.

There is no other word to describe the story here but strange. Now I never read the original run of this series before, although after this issue I do want to go out and find it. However, if this issue reintroduces everything that the old series had, then it must have been one strange comic to publish in 1994. We have a character who is a ‘reverse zombie’ in that, everything he touches and even himself can heal with no problem. This David Kim character can never die and anything he touches can come back to life or he can reshape things to his will. Think of it like the guy who was in ‘Pushing Daisies’ but there’s no drawback (yet anyways). It’s an intriguing power to have and Rozum does his best to emphasis all the amazing things Kim can do. But there’s more to this issue then reintroducing Xombi to the DCU. We have a man who can talk to coins, an alien species (I think aliens anyways) that looks like the food ginger, and then you have superpowered nuns. One can see long distances, one can shrink to a small size, and we have a Catholic Girl who glows and shoots out lazer beams. A lot of this feels like a Grant Morrison comic, if I’m honest, but that isn’t a bad thing. There is a lot of creativity here and even if it’s a retread for people who know of the original run; for a guy like me who’s never read a single issue before it’s fun to read. It’s confusing as hell mind you, but it doesn’t deter from the story.

Not knowing how crazy this comic was actually going to be, I mainly picked it up originally for the Frazer Irving art. I love Irving’s style and he’s one of the few digital artists I can truly stand to like his art. Partially I like his art because he instantly knows how to set the mood with his coloring. You wouldn’t think bright purple would create tension, but he does a pretty good job using that color in a lot of the pages. Also some pretty light blues and oranges fill the pages at well. I can’t really explain why I love the character’s he draws, but he definitely does a better job with the emotions in each comic he draws unlike other digital artists. David Kim does look a bit freakish sometimes with an egg head….but other things like the Catholic Girl character and the nuns are good too. Also, when the flying electric angels come in (you need to read it in order to understand it) there is a lot of great effects involved. Irving’s art is definitely sane in comparison to the ideas Rozum puts to the table.

If the goal was to make a book so strange that you need to pick another issue up to hopefully understand it, then congrads to John Rozum and DC. There are a lot of strange ideas put into this character and I am intrigued to see more of his adventures. It’s really Grant Morrison-lite if I can put the best description for the story. But you also have great art in here by Frazier Irving and he really puts all of these strange ideas perfectly on the page. God knows how long a book like this can last in today’s market. But I am going to keep giving this series a go until the series bores me. Considering how strange this issue can go from here, that might never happen.