"Reborn" #1 from Image Comics -
Bonnie Black's life, like most lives, has been touched by beauty and marred by tragedy. Now in her very late 70's, after a stroke, she convalesces in a hospital struggling with the impending end of her life. As she reflects on her life - the love she once found, and the tragic way she lost it; the happiness of having a child, and the heartbreaking deaths of her parents - Bonnie is at a loss to find meaning in her life, she cannot find the faith to quit herself like a woman and die with dignity like that of her lifelong best friend who passed six months ago. But when Bonnie has her final stroke, she surrenders expecting life to just end, expecting the world to just go dark like flicking off a light switch. Instead, she awakens, reborn young, strong, and beautiful in a savage, fantastic new world named Adystria where humans are locked in a fierce battle with the ruler of a horrific place called the Dark Lands. And that's not all, the humans believe that Bonnie is the savior that they have been waiting for to turn the tide of the battle. Is Bonnie really the protector of the oppressed tribes of Adystria, or is this a fever dream, a collapsing reality created by a dying human mind?
Mark Millar has done it again. With "Reborn" #1, he has managed to create a protagonist so compelling and an origin story so full of depth and meaning that the reader is simply mesmerized long before Bonnie Black enters the wondrous world of Adystria as "the protector." As Bonnie struggles to accept the coming end of her life, Millar retools her end to make it a new beginning, a captivating origin story. Millar's writing is tight here, it explores some tender themes, and some mortifying fears that humans experience, fears that augment as one reaches the tipping point of life, the point where one realizes that there are fewer days of life ahead than there are behind. Faith, hope, perseverance, fear, and the big questions that hit all thinking people at some time in their lives: Do we even matter on a planetary or universal scale? Do our lives really mean anything?. Millar handles this all deftly in "Reborn" #1, and he is backed up by Greg Capullo and his magnificent pencils which give us big, busy, cinematic panels, expressive faces, and classic sci-fi action all in one magnificent book. Reborn is just top notch. Go get it. You'll be glad you did.
RATING: 10 out of 10. "Reborn" #1 is a revelation.
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