Review – Bug Wars #1 (Image Comics)

February 14, 2025

2–4 minutes

Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Mahmud Asrar
Colours: Matthew Wilson
Lettering: Becca Carey
Release Date: 12th February 2025

Hot on the heels of the news that the first issue has completely sold out at the distributor level, Bug Wars # 1 went on sale this week from Image Comics, reuniting the creative team of Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar for a sprawling dark fantasy epic.

This first issue introduces us to Slade Slaymaker, a young man forced to move back to his childhood home along with his older brother and struggling mother – the same home where their father died in fairly grisly circumstances when Slade was just a child. To make matters worse, it was older brother Syd who discovered their father’s body, half-eaten by the insects he loved so much, a fact which is making Slade’s own love of entomology something of a family powder keg just waiting to explode.

Oh but that’s not all. Because in house’s backyard, a whole other world is playing out. A world of foul-mouthed, beetle-riding barbarians and sneering, disdainful ant warriors. A world of sprawling fantasy, brutal violence and a seemingly never-ending war. And a world that by the end of this issue, Slade is going to end up thrust right into the middle of.

Honestly, the creative team for this one was already enough to convince me to pick it up. Individually, Aaron and Asrar are undoubtedly two of my favourite creators, and with their previous collaboration on Conan The Barbarian at Marvel Comics earning no shortage of praise from yours truly, the prospect of seeing them reunite on a series that features some thematic similarities was simply too good to pass up.

The pair waste no time throwing the reader right into the midst of the titular ‘Bug Wars’ right from the opening page, setting the scene with a beautifully violent and profane showdown between the aforementioned ant and beetle armies. As always, Asrar is absolutely in his element in these types of sequences, packing the pages with sprawling action and glorious gore, while giving the whole section a pleasingly serious and unmistakably cinematic feel. Matthew Wilson also does a truly stellar job throughout the issue, but particularly during these early moments, leaning into the fantastical and giving us a landscape that feels a million miles away from an everyday backyard.

Aaron’s characterisation is spot-on throughout, painting Slade as a likeable underdog but providing some intriguing foreshadowing of the man he will become through the issue-long narration, with a seemingly older Slade recalling his first steps into the ‘The Yard’. It’s great stuff, and Aaron’s gift for addictive world building remains well and truly intact here. We also get some tasty supplementary information at the end of the issue, including a map of the backyard penned by Slade himself, to further flesh out the story. I absolutely love stuff like this, and again, it’s perfectly executed.

A fantastic opening chapter of what promises to be an epic new series from two creators working in perfect synergy. Feeling like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Conan the Barbarian, this new series demands your immediate attention. Although as I mentioned above, you may have to grab a second printing to get your hands on it now.

Rating: 4.5/5.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]