Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Image | Tagged: bryan hitch, gary frank, geiger, geoff johns, Ghost Machine, jason fabok, Redcoat, Rook

The Timelines Of Ghost Machine With Redcoat, Rook & Geiger (Spoilers)

Ghost Machine launches Geiger, Redcoat and Rook: Exodus from Image Comics last week... but how does it all line up?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a 1985 Western novel that follows a teenager from Tennessee, known as The Kid, born during the Leonids meteor shower of 1833, and his experiences with the Glanton gang, a group of actual scalp hunters who massacred Native Americans on the US/Mexican borders in 1849, against Judge Holden, a super-strong inteligent leader of the gang, very pale with no hair whatsoever. The book highlight the violence of humanity against a pretence of civilisation, in a world where everyone is struggling against the threat of imminent death. Talking of which…

Sorry, wrong comic, wrong year.

That's better, if slightly less specific. Welcome to Geiger, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, one of the three Ghost Machine launches from Image Comics last week that blew up the bestseller chart. 

So obviously it's the reading matter of choice of Geiger, set twenty-five years from now, now being whenever you pick up the book. As long as no one has knocked it to the dusty floor, of course,

After all, there is a punishment for a poor keeping of books or comics in the future, any anyone who direspects a librray of all things.

Geiger is almost at the end of the Unnamed Universe, which gets a timeline for books that have been published – and those that have not. Dan DiDio may not have been able to get his timeline established, but Geoff Johns has with his.

Though Redcoat guy Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch gives us some very imortant dates to add to this timeline from 1976, his immortality and, of course the decleration of independence, a date I only know from Hamilton. More on that in a minute,

Slaps across a century.

Alleged murders too. Presumably deserving more than a slap. But we also gwet to go back one year earlier to 1755 as well as some other notable figures.

So that is Paul Revere, and he will probably be as much a newcomer to the artist Bryan Hitch as he was to me until relatively recently. Famed for his midnight horseback ride to alert the militia inabout the approach of the British army before the battles of Lexington and Concord. He got a poem and everything. As Brits we never learn about the independence of the USA, it's relation to the history of the UK is relatively minor, even though it is the lens in which American schoolchildren see England. We're more likely to know about the Independence of India, as that has a much greater impact on Empire.

The phrase, "the British are coming" is more likely to be thought of in the UK as a reference to Richard Attenborough at the Oscars, not knowing he was quoting someone. Also see Jack Nicholson in The Shining, we think "Heeeeerw's Johnny" is quoting that film, rather than Nicholson quoting Johnny Carson's opening of his TV talk show. Two countries divided by a common langauge and history. American Geoff Johns might have presumed Bryan Hitch was au fait with this character and this history, Bryan Hitch will have had to hit the research books hard.

Anyway, he survived through attacking magcial fireflies that make the British soldiers explode in a fashion that looks just like Geiger. You know what that's not? A coincidence.

No, Bryan, not Tony Hancock, but John Hancock, one of the Founding Fathers, who was alerted by Paul Revere, and whose signature on the declaration of independence is where Americans get the slang for a signature from, because his was a bit more elaborate than the others. He was also a famous freemason, and of course a slave owner.

So when runanway Redcoat Simon Pure bursts inro a masonic lodge with members wearing hooded costumes with Grand Union Flags on them, as Bryan will have discovered on his research, the first, unofficial national flag of the United States of America.

And as Simon Pure gets the power intended for Ben… that's fellow founder Benjamin Franklin, wearing the bifocal glasses he invented, another major mason, and even published and edited books about freemasonry. Though this particular chapter seems to have evaded James Anderson's Constitutions of the Free-Masons.

So we have the early magics of the Founding Fathers of the USA in the eighteenth centure at one end, and magics greated by nuclear radiation including a two headed wolf, conceivably the American magics of the twentieth and twenty-first century at the other… and somehow linked in appearance and effect. One might ask if Simon Pure is alive in the world of Geiger and who he might be…

… and if he is still hungry.

… or could he even have been cured of the nuclear energy that possesses Geiger? While Rook: Exodus by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, which is where this article began, is not a part of this universe, it has its own timeline established.

Though given it is set well into the 22nd century, is there any reason it could not be?

As everyone leaves this worlf, and all its magics and science for another.

Maybe they can get it right this time.

So how's that going?

Oh dear, oh dear. Stil, at least they have their friends.

Albeit animals, with Rook bonded to his birds.

Someone's got to have a link with a two headed wolf, right?

Though I don't know how big he'd get here…

Three new titles from Ghost MAchine, part of the creator-owned shared universes publishing project through Image Comics. And a few more logos for previously announced projects as well.

GEIGER #1 CVR A FRANK
IMAGE COMICS
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(W) Geoff Johns (A/CA) Gary Frank
SERIES PREMIERE IT ALL STARTS HERE! The critically acclaimed team of storytellers GEOFF JOHNS and GARY FRANK return to the nuclear wasteland of GEIGER for an ALL-NEW ONGOING series starring the violent and unpredictable GLOWING MAN! Leaving his home behind, Tariq Geiger now walks the radioactive roads of the former United States with his two-headed wolf Barney. But as his enemies doggedly pursue him, Geiger discovers salvation from the unlikeliest of foes. But what secrets does this potential ally hold that could help Geiger? And exactly how many people are after The Glowing Man… and why? Don't miss this vital action-packed chapter in THE UNNAMED saga!In Shops: Apr 03, 2024 SRP: $3.99

REDCOAT #1 CVR A HITCH
IMAGE COMICS
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(W) Geoff Johns (A/CA) Bryan Hitch
SERIES PREMIERE
Immortal. Mercenary. Kind of a tool. Meet Simon Pure, the newest UNNAMED hero, created by comic all-stars GEOFF JOHNS and BRYAN HITCH. British redcoat and all-around rogue, Simon mysteriously became immortal in 1776 after a run-in with the clandestine cabal known as the Founding Fathers, which included George Washington, John Hancock, and many other prominent American Revolutionary War leaders. Since that fateful day, Simon has led a life of adventure and avarice, rubbing elbows (and sometimes fists) with many of history's most renowned figures, including his nemesis Benedict Arnold, Albert Einstein, Annie Oakley, and many more. One thing they all agree on: they never want to see him again! But what are the true origins and extent of Simon's power and the mysterious organization behind them? And how has it secretly shaped America and the world? Simon's on a quest to find out! 34 pages of story for only $3.99!In Shops: Apr 03, 2024 SRP: $3.99

ROOK EXODUS #1 CVR A FABOK
IMAGE COMICS
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(W) Geoff Johns (A/CA) Jason Fabok
SERIES PREMIERE GEOFF JOHNS and JASON FABOK, the celebrated team behind the smash hit Batman: Three Jokers, reunite for an all-new science fiction series! Hundreds of years from now, the man known as Rook was once a simple farmer who fled the crumbling Earth for a new life on the planet Exodus; a terraformed planet where all of nature, including its imported animal population, was completely controlled by humans called Wardens. But when Exodus's world engine failed, the Wardens' power fell into the wrong hands, creating chaos and mass evacuation… for those who could afford it. The rest, like Rook, must scavenge for an escape vessel as the war for control of what's left of Exodus begins. 44 pages of story for only $3.99!In Shops: Apr 03, 2024 SRP: $3.99

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