Prophet, Volume 4: Joining

Prophet #4

by Brandon Graham, Simon Roy, Giannis Milonogiannis

The super-being Troll's plans to lure out Badrock come to a head!

Collecting: Prophet 39-45

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Space Opera

168 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2015

About the author

Brandon Graham (born 1976) is an American comic book creator.

Born in Oregon, Graham grew up in Seattle, Washington, where he was a graffiti artist. He wrote and illustrated comic books for Antarctic Press and Radio Comix, but got his start drawing pornographic comics like Pillow Fight and Multiple Warheads (Warheads would go on to become its own comic published by Oni Press in 2007). In 1997, he moved to New York City where he found work with NBM Publishing and became a founding member of comics collective Meathaus. His book Escalator was published by Alternative Comics in January 2005, when he returned to Seattle. His book King City was published by Tokyopop in 2007 and was nominated for an Eisner Award. In May 2009 Graham announced that King City would continue publication at Image Comics and his Oni Press title Multiple Warheads would resume publication after a delay, this time in color. Also at Image he is the writer on Prophet, the return of a 1990s series, with the rotating roster of artists Giannis Milonogiannis, Farel Dalrymple, Simon Roy, and himself.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Grahaeme Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of the four volumes in this series so far (it will conclude with the forthcoming Earth War miniseries). This volume ties together a lot of the plot-lines from the previous volumes and continues to be weird, challenging and occasionally moving. 'Prophet' shows what can be accomplished when a group of talented underground comic artists are given free reign to breathe new life into a title, and it's clear they are having fun bringing this bizarre, far future world to life. The Strikefile issues included in this volume really add to the richness of the world-building by giving context to the main plotlines (such as a history of the nightmarish Earth Empire). This volume is further proof that this series is the best sci-fi comic being published at the moment.

[Jesse A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still love the art. Still confusing but feels like the story is somewhat coming together.

[Brian Dickerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 4 kicked up the level of chaotic story telling, but also bring some thing into focus. I wandered some while reading making it easy to put down between issue for days at a time. I still love the world that has been built and look forward to the conlusive volume 5.

Even a little James Stokoe art brings a smile to my face!

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brandon Graham’s collaborators—Simon Roy, Giannis Milonogiannis, and Farel Dalrymple—take on bigger creative roles in this volume, often trading off artistic duties from page to page and even panel to panel (with a few other incredible creators stepping in here and there). But now that the book’s strangeness has become more familiar, it’s all beginning to feel much more like an intellectual exercise rather than a shared hallucination.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 1 out of 5]

So with this collection I feel like the series really jumped the shark. It's just to all over the place. It's the kind of series where you have to go back and read it again to know what's going on. There is just so much stuff being said and done and I felt like I had no context for what they were saying. You would think I skipped over the first three volumes of this series.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly more focused and easier to follow than the last few volumes but still tough to figure out what's going on. Visually stunning as usual but I'm looking forward to wrapping up the series.

[Alex McCullough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brandon Graham can be tough to read sometimes. He's got wild, massive ideas, but he rarely fleshes them out into something that you can really wrap your mind around and understand. Sometimes this bugs me (Multiple Warheads), but sometimes the vague implications and uncertainties of the world he's writing in combine with his amazing art style to create something amazing and transcendent (King City, Rain Like Hammers).

I've been slowly making my way through Prophet, reading a volume or two every few years, and I've enjoyed it, though obviously not enough to rip through it quickly. This volume is where Graham's ideas really take off and become something special. There are so many different artists involved in this book (including, thankfully, Graham himself), and they're all absolutely fantastic. All of the different styles blend so perfectly with Graham's nebulous story and make for some absolutely jaw-dropping splashes and panels. (Love to see my boy James Stokoe in here, who Graham has said has "all of my strengths and none of my weaknesses" which I heartily agree with.)

In short, this arc shows the enormous scope of the Prophet story really coming to fruition in an amazing way. Can't wait to see how it ends. Highly recommend.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another volume of Prophet that's one-part puzzling and two-parts amazing. We got wars in space, the return of classic Image heroes, the uniting of some of our heroes from this story, and some background that explains just a little bit what's going on.

It's overall a nice continuation of this story, though it's likely to take multiple reads to really gel into something sensical.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the issues dedicated to the crews' backstories, and that some of the plot lines have come together. A lot of content: 7 issues and a couple "strike files," something like illustrated worldbuilding notes. The art style for Diehard's issue was really cool.

[Anton · Rating 4 out of 5]

B
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N
K
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S

[Vlad]

Prophetic visions from a future centered around humanity's primordial instincts of conquering space and time.

Minds are freed from millennia of empire's yoke.

Pieces of the game come together.

... the master lives in these colours and lines... Arzach flies no more..

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

At once indecipherable and yet also where the narrative is the most clear, Graham really lets his Alexandro Jodorowsky style world building really show through. The disregard for convention is, indeed, a breath of fresh air, but it is actually building towards a narrative and that is clearest in this book. However, it is impossible to tell if this is the end of a series or really the beginning of it. Graham is definitely operating on the ice-berg theory: most of the detailed religions and history are only shown as surface. Only through the flash-backs of Old Man Prophet and Diehard's collective memory do you get the most coherent hints at the development of the universe in which Graham is operating. Liefeld's creations are important to mythos though and some of this reads like a thought experiment on what would happened if such over-powered beings were allowed to exist for eons and how time would warp them. Again, despite the high number of artists, this comic still has coherent atmospherics and consistency in art style.

The inclusion of Prophet: Strikefile at the end does actually clarify what some of the Liefeld creations have morphed into, although how and why still remains somewhat arcane. The upcoming Prophet: Earthwar will probably clarify the stakes and give an ending to the entire series.

[47Time · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume has flasbacks and a history lesson that try to add more depth to the story, but it's so convoluted that it's hard to keep track of what the goal is. The artwork is done by multiple artists, so it's all over the place, matching the apparent chaos in the story. Ultimately, I'm afraid I won't be left with anything after reading this comic. The story is left in a cliffhanger that makes it mandatory to read Empire War too. I don't have great expectations any more.

The Earth Empire was a great power in the Universe, but it was ultimately crushed by an alliance of races. The present sees a great battle between giants that ends with the death of the newfather. Old Prophet's group is saved by a being that only wants some egg guarded by a monstruous creatures.

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

As well as a normal set of 6 stories, this collection contains the pretty-much-indispensable "Strikefile" issues, a pair of installments that provide a history of the Empire, its species, and the various Johns.

These may be worth reading BEFORE you start the series proper to provide a clearer understanding of the Prophet universe, but I really appreciate where they are placed given this is my fourth (at least) reading.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is still a weird as hell comic, but I am a huge fan of James Stokoe. I think this volume explained some of the creatures from past volumes. I do appreciate this is a world developed millenia later from the original comics superheros from the 90's and how they have mutated. I'd say if you are in it for the art, enjoy. Story-wise I'm still scratching my head.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Post-superhero abstract visions from the mind of a madman. The art is beautiful, both Graham’s work and all the guest artists. I’ve never seen a book use multiple artists so coherently. Everyone has a distinctive style, but the character design stays consistent in a way you rarely see.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable Prophet Saga extrapolated through interpretive pyschohistory in a convincing bandes dessine style.

[Adam Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy Prophet when it's this weird, barely explained excursion where we follow a clone or two through an alien landscape where they reach their largely unsatisfying goal, and then we start anew with a new clone. I really don't care about the Youngblood/Youngstar continuity, or any of the Liefeld-verse characters. In this volume the story "comes together" and then we are shown the Missing History between issue 19 (which came out as volume 2 #8 back in 1995) and issue 20, which came out in 2012.

I really didn't care. I didn't want to know how/if it connected to the old series, and I found myself barely looking at the text on the Strikefile issues at the back of the volume, instead viewing it as an art project with nonsense words attached to it.

I'm till glad I read it, as there was some stellar art, and cool concepts but both the continuity potential and its execution completely failed to keep my attention.

If you loved the Liefeld verse and are curious as to how it connects to this, then this might be an A+ book for you.

[Bob Comparda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume Four of Prophet was just as imaginative and big and confusing as the other volumes. What I love most about this series is how huge and thought out it is, but they don't really explain any of it to you, they just throw you in the middle of this epic space Opera and leave you to figure out what's going on on your own. The different alien races and tools and even concepts are so wild and complex, and they are just perpetually throwing more at you as if they won't ever run out of new ideas. The story can be a bit confusing, but to me the story is secondary to the ideas that are presented. What was interesting to me was this volume seemed to focus less on the John Prophet clones and more on some of the side characters. The two issues of Prophet: Strikeforce at the end were really cool as they essentially just gave background information on the world and characters to help you understand the story a bit more. The artwork was phenomenal as always. I recommend Prophet to anyone who likes sci-fi.

[Titus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent continuation of the series. In fact, it may be my favourite volume so far. It takes a deeper dive into the history of its world and some of its characters, which is very welcome in making the overarching plot a bit more apprehensible. As always, it’s bursting with imagination and great fantastical concepts, as well as loads of exciting action. I feel like this volume packs a bit more emotional punch than what’s come before; its portrayal of the millennia-long life of an immortal character is particularly moving. The art in this volume is all superb: there’s a bigger roster of artists than previous volumes and some (like James Stokoe) only doing a couple of pages, but the artist changes coincide with changes of setting, so it never feels jarring. I tore through the whole volume in one day and I can’t wait to get onto the next!

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strongest volume of Prophet yet continues to yield high levels of imagination and fantastical elements to elevate this already esoteric sci-fi series to new heights. Simon Roy, Giannis Milogiannis, Farel Dalrymple and others take on increased artistic roles in this volume with a lot of story being delivered from visuals alone, and the group often trading off not between issues but between panels. The broad range of artists shouldn't work as well as it does, but something about Brandon Graham's loose plotting enables the diverse group of artists working on this book to all shine individually while still contributing to something fairly cohesive. This volume concludes with the exposition heavy Strikfile issues, but they're worth it for the artwork alone.

[Sean Edgar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love this series, but I think this is when the mythology/guest artists became too unfocused. The mythology sprawled too hard to where the line between creativity and worldbuilding veered into incomprehensibility. Having Graham/Dalrymple/Graham/Roy/Giannis alone tackling a set of characters helped immensely in focus and storytelling. The art here is by no means bad, but the momentum of the previous three volumes derailed.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a thick one! Some parts of it were better than other parts. About 1/3rd is sort of an almanac, with page after page of single paragraph explanations of characters or genetic races or space ships... super interesting stuff. I almost enjoyed that more than the actual story bits.

As always, the art is spectacular.

[Hassan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I quit. This is a pretty psychedelic universe and I'm not averse (at all) to WEIRD SHIT. But I just can't follow it anymore. There's an art to visual storytelling, whereby panel-structure and dialogue combine to provide coherence and momentum to the narrative. Prophet doesn't really care about that. The world-building is amaze-ballz, but if I can't follow the thread, I don't give a fuck.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

La historia por fin cuaja y el arte es hermoso. Hay que volver acá por el arte. El tomo está lleno de referencias a las historietas más rancias jamás hechas y las dignifica y resignifica de una forma sorprendente.

[Ramon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things come to a head and it's not even the finale. Continues to be great. Nice solo issues as well. Continues to surprise and delight.

[Jason Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

watching the intersection of all the plot lines is both satisfying and maddening in everything you've already forgotten since this series started.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So weird and amazing.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The crazy complicated story the John Prophets continues. As usual the art is amazing borrowing from the styles of all the artists responsible for this series.

[Adam Šilhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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