The Old Guard: Tales Through Time Vol. 1
Greg Rucka, writer & creator; Leandro Fernández, art & creator; Daniela Miwa, colors; Jodi Wynne, letters; & others
Image Comics, 2021
A compendium of 12 tales of the immortal Old Guard ranging chronologically from ancient times to the present day. Two of the stories come from co-creators Rucka and Fernández, with a dazzling list of comics creators providing the rest. "My Mother's Axe" tells the story of Andromache's battle axe, which is also the story of her life (the violent parts, anyway). Over the course of its life every part of the axe has been replaced, but it is still the only axe she has ever owned. Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro and Rebecca Good's "Bonsai Shokunin" is a stylish rendering of Noriko's origin in Japan, including several wordless pages. "Passchendaele" (by Brian Michael Bendis, Micheal Avon Oeming and Taki Soma) tells the story of the reunion of one of the immortals and her chance meeting with the boy she raised as a son after finding him on a battlefield--now grown and cook and owner of a restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio.
Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber and Daniela Miwa pick up Andy's story in the American frontier in "How To Make A Ghost Town." She leaves her Black husband Achilles to go on a job. Before leaving the country, she stops back in to check on him, only to find him dead and their home burned down. Thus does a love story turn into a familiar one of blood and vengeance. The answer to the title question: first, you take a town...then fill it with ghosts. "An Old Soul" by Jason Aaron, Rafael Albuquerque and Daniela Miwa is mainly about Book in New York City in 1978. When Andy comes to his rescue in Guyana three months later, she finds him embroiled in a bizarre relationship with a group of nuns. He has convinced them that his immortality is proof that Armageddon has come. Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernández and Daniela Miwa's "The Bear" introduces an Immortal named Isaac. A trip to town shows him being a friend to the townspeople. But back on his remote island home he is all alone, until he meets the titular bear.
The collection concludes with a collection of full-sized covers, including alternates. It would not work for readers unfamiliar with the series, but it's an excellent anthology. I would gladly read more of them.
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