Next week is the 14th new comic book day of 2025! This post covers Image Comics April 2 2025 new releases. Missed this week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Image Comics March 26 2025 new releases.
This week in Image Comics: The return of silent American Heroes, Nyx’s past unravelled, Rook & Rat collected, a serial obsession with serial killers, a big reveal for Hornsby & Halo, a pair of loser devils get gluttonous, and more!
The Krisis Pick of the Week: This isn’t the strongest week of Image for me, but I think I’m the most psyched to read Hornsby & Halo (2024) #5. Read more below on why I feel like issue #4 finally delivered on the promise of the series to understand why I’m looking forward to this new issue.
This post includes every comic out from Image Comics this week on April 2 2025, plus collected editions. This isn’t the typical comic releases post you can find on other sites. Why? I explain each collection and comment on every series with a new issue out this week to help you figure out if they’re for you.
Plus, for some long-running series and Image Comics imprints, I’ll point you to a personally-curated guide within the Crushing Comics Guide to Indie Comics to find out how to collect that title in full!
There’s no other website on the internet that can claim that.
And now, onto Image Comics April 2 2025 new releases!
Image Comics April 2 2025 Collected Editions
Note: Image Comics collections hit the direct market 2-3 weeks prior to when they ship to the book market, so if you order these Image Comics April 2 2025 books today from a traditional bookseller they will still be pre-orders and will arrive in a few weeks.
Rat City Vol. 1
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534387409 / digital)
See Guide to Spawn. Check out the book that I’ve been calling “Spawn 2099,” a look at a potential future for the Spawn symbiote in a slick sci-fi setting written by Eric Schultz.
Rook: Exodus Vol. 1: Fight or Flight
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1534367364)
This collects the first arc of Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok’s future sci-fi epic. We all know I’m not a fan of Johns as a writer, but I am a major fan of Fabok as an artist. To me, he is the modern inheritor of Jim Lee’s style. I’ll definitely give this a try the next time it has some new issues out.
Read on for summaries of Image Comics April 2 2025 single issue releases!
Image Comics April 2 2025 Physical Comic Releases
Want to see each one of these Image Comics April 2 2025 single issues reviewed in one minute or less? Check out my weekly live stream “The Pull List” on YouTube!
Black Ritual: The Book of Nyx (2025) #1 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. Awwww yeah, it’s a new Spawn book not written by the Toddfather!
Who writes it? Spawn “editor-in-chief” Thomas Healy.
What’s that? He’s the… editor? Of Spawn? Spawn has an editor? Other than me editing it after the fact as I read it?
Interesting. To be fair, I might do words good, but I hardly follow Spawn’s twisted continuity, so perhaps Healy is the master of that. That would make sense, since this series follows Nyx, original She-Spawn and now Queen of Hell, filling in more of her unseen story throughout Spawn’s continuity.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero – Beach Head (2025) #1 (digital) – See Guide to GI Joe: A Real American Hero (eventually) (like, really soon) (I hope).
Skybound Entertainment celebrates to legacy of incredible wordless missions for the Joes with a series of new one-shots in the classic “Real American Hero” continuity. That’s a pretty big shakeup for this brand that shows Skybound’s commitment to the longrunning Larry Hama coninuity, as throughout a decade at IDW the classic continuity only had a tiny handful of supporting issues outside of the regular series.
This one focuses on Beach Head, an army ranger and occasional Joe trainer – which is how I know him from the GI Joe movie! This issue is written and drawn by Phil Hester with Travis Hymel on inks and colors by Lee Loughridge.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero – Silent Missions Edition #21 (2025) #1 (digital) – See Guide to GI Joe: A Real American Hero (eventually) (but not too eventually) (seriously, it’s the #1 guide I’ve wanted to finish these past few years and I’m so close).
This is actually a facsimile edition of the famous first “silent mission” from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1982) #21. Originally released in 1983, it is a famous Snake Eyes adventure with no dialog drawn by series writer Larry Hama!
Hornsby & Halo (2024) #5 (digital) – See Guide to Ghost Machine (eventually). The first three issues of this Peter Tomasi title about an angel and demon pair of teens never clicked with me and issue #4 helped me understand why… because I loved it.
The first three issues of this book were very much focused on establishing the slightly mysterious, very unfair world around these two teens, who had no idea they were actually celestial beings. Last month I said, “Neither character is particularly interesting, either on their own or with each other. … There’s really no one to root for here and no hint of the stakes of them slowly coming into their heavenly and hellish lineage.”
What changed in issue #4? The agency these characters were missing. It wasn’t like they looked directly through the panel at me as the reader and say, “I’m going to do something about being an angel / devil now.” It was more that they each took decisive action to escape the temporary zombies chasing them and set right the minor act of larceny that got everything underway to start with.
Also, there were more hints of the larger plot. Of course this book is going to hinge on the two of them learning about and confronting their lineage, but we got glimmers of why it’s so important to expose their heritage now.
The vibe I get is that most readers weren’t as annoyed with the first three issues of this as I was, so I don’t think it’s in danger due to a slow start. If anything, hitting its stride just as we wrap up the material that would fit into a first trade should make for a very readable book.
Hyde Street (2024) #5 (digital) – See Guide to Ghost Machine (eventually). Geoff Johns digs more into the lore of his very scary side street as our pretty evil protagonist Mr. X-Ray seeks potential allies among The Residents.
I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer (2025) #1 (digital) – John Wagner has been writing comics for 20 years and somehow I’ve only read a single issue – Vinyl (2021) #1 (also with artist Daniel Hillyard).
I absolutely loathed it. My note on the issue was as follows:
A much, much, much less interesting Nailbiter. An agent has been tracking a serial killer who maybe has something to do with music? And it’s intercut with lots of random gore, just to have some gore. This is relying hard on the disconnect between the high gloss colors and the bloody plot to carry it Instant drop.
That book was about a serial killer with a verve for vinyl. Also, Image just released a paperback of this team’s Plastic (2017), about a serial killer obsessed with his plastic sex doll.
This one is about a serial killer with an eye for fashion. I’ll give the #1 a try, because loathing one issue doesn’t make a trend, but… I’m not excited to try it.
Juvenile (2024) #5 (of 5) (digital) – I had such strong feelings for this series at the start, but it has stumbled to this finish line. Despite the big idea of the plot and the engaging illustration style, the pacing issues and unclear action are just too much to overcome.
As much as I admire Jesús Orellana’s talents to write, draw, color, and letter this all himself, I think in the end he might have benefited from some collaboration. At least an editor to help smooth the rough edges of his pacing!
Last issue was an excuse to draw a ton of people floating around and partying. The narrative was unclear. Were they training or just hanging out? Was the guard they drugged asleep for two minutes, two hours, or all day?
I’m sad because I think this series started with some brilliant world-building and it’s clear we’re not going to have enough time to pay that off in full in this final issue. I hope Orellana learned some things about constructing his next creator-owned tale and will soon be back for more.
The Lucky Devils (2025) #3 (digital) – After a first issue that really captured my attention, I though the second issue of this Charles Soule & Ryan Browne was a complete flop.
Sure, it spent time to established the hierarchy of devilry and why new positions might be open soon, but that gave us very little understanding of our character and the scene was a real slog. And then we went through a sequence of devils sleeping around to get access to other sins… like, we get it, devils are… devilish? Nothing about that felt particularly subversive or interesting.
By the time the book finally made it out of hell to check in on our human characters I had progressed from bored to annoyed to mildly angry with the execution.
Maybe all of this was necessary groundwork to help us understand all of the fast-moving sinners and sins that are coming our way, but after two issues full of awkward info-dumping with pace problems I’m starting to think this might just be a bad comic.
This has one more issue… maybe two… before I drop it. I thought the real story here is how a pair of low-level, loser devils inspire a pair of low-level, loser humans to turn into mini-dictators in their communities so they affect more and more other souls.
Maybe instead it’s just about a pair of loser devils being losers.
Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch (2025) #2 (digital) – Juni Ba’s silly anthology about the evil Monkey Meat Company and their horrifically amusing acts conducted in the service of naked capitalism continues.
Sam and Twitch: Case Files (2024) #12 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. This series has focused so much on the stern Twitch that last issue’s focus on the more rough-and-tumble Sam was a lot of fun. Watching him chase down a drug dealer like a bull in a China shop was just the right pop of irreverent roughness in a book that can be a bit contemplative.
It’s wild that we’re a year into this title and we’ve had so few scenes of Sam and Twitch working together. I know the premise of this run is that they’re feeling somewhat estranged from each other, but it feels like McFarlane is really holding out on us when it comes to the classic vibe he could be bringing to this book.
The Scorched (2022) #39 (digital) – See Guide to Spawn. John Layman’s all-Spawns team title felt a little bit basic last month, with an issue that wasn’t much more than a good-looking battle, courtesy of Stephen Segovia. This issue promises more life-or-death struggles, but I’m starting to feel like it’s been a while since we’ve had any real plot development.
The Walking Dead Deluxe (2020) #110 (digital) – This recolored issue of Walking Dead coninues Volume 19, “March to War” – leading up to the major Rick vs. Negan storyline.
That’s it for Image Comics April 2 2025 new releases! What were you already pulling? And, did I convince you to check out anything new? Sound off in the comments below.