OK, so here is the thumbnail sketch of this book: David Kim is apparently immortal thanks to an infestation of nanomachines that constantly keep his body from aging or being permanently damaged. He can't get drunk, he can't get fat and he can't age. He never has to go to the bathroom, either, which is a little creepy, but the nanomachines also give him one fantastically useful power beyond the obvious egocentric ones listed above: transmutation, by virtue of being able to will the machines to modify at a molecular level any object he touches. If that sounds somehow underpowered or subdued, it is when compared to most super heroes - it isn't flight, it isn't being able to make anything in the universe just by thinking about it (as long as it's green), it isn't a lasso of truth or an invisible jet - but it fits what seems to be a very subdued, practical, human book to a tee.

The very first scene - the very first page - is one of him idly turning wads of paper into popcorn after having the machines disassemble three pieces of popcorn so that they know how to make those three pieces of popcorn from then on. If that isn't a perfect introductory character sketch then I don't know what is: it tells us that David Kim is comfortable with his powers, yes, but he's still very much enough of a human being to need to experiment, to question, to explore his condition and try to learn from it. That sort of character is one with whom I feel an immediate kinship. After all, isn't that what many of us in the queer communities do, too? We wake up one day, at 14 or at 40, and realize that we are forever to some degree outside the rest of society's boundaries. We are Other and that puts some distance between us and the life we've lived up until that point, yes, but it also opens the door to a whole new realm of experience, one we learn by exploring and experimenting and testing the boundaries of our newfound ability to go where others simply can't. (Did I just make being queer into a superpower? I absolutely and sincerely meant to.) David Kim has been a character for a very long time, but there he is, still poking his abilities with a stick and seeing what happens. It made me love him before the first page was over.

It doesn't hurt, quite frankly, that he's drawn as being unbelievably hot. Maybe I'm a shallow queen, sure, but Frazer Irving's absolutely magnificent art shows us in all the right ways just how perfectly the machines maintain Kim's form. He draws Kim in that cock-forward, arched-back stance that automatically and unthinkingly cranks my motor even when Kim is doing minor stuff: washing the dishes, getting a beer. That posture is basically the hottest thing around, for my money, and Irving's art makes me want to lick the page. That's no justification for buying a comic - or is it? - but it adds to my enjoyment and I won't even try to deny it.

The other heroes we meet in the pages of this first issue are themselves of relatively subdued powers that must be carefully wielded and can be overcome. Even the one whose elevated position is suggested by his ability to give David Kim orders - though perhaps he merely makes requests, it's early yet and we know little - figures out that something is afoot by feeling overwhelmed and threatened and is introduced to us as fragile from the very start. This dialing down of the world to something more accessible and human - perhaps more humane as well - even extends to the super-prison the characters are visiting, both literally and thematically. Explained in detail in the comic, I won't spoil it here; suffice to say, the ideas behind it are incredibly clever and left me grinning from ear to ear when I read them. One of my favorite literary flourishes, and one of the ways in which narrative elements so neatly mirror one another, is the description of the condition of the person David Kim is trying to find. In one big way it's a warped reflection of the main character himself: if Kim's own natural biological processes are no longer in charge - arguably no longer even functioning - then is he really alive or is he just a vehicle for the machines? The book's own title presents this very quandary to the reader before they've even cracked it open. That sort of folding-back-on-itself in a story drives me wild with enthusiasm.

Overall, the world that Rozum starts to show us in this first issue of the new run is fascinating. It's filled with the paranormal flavor and high strangeness of, say, X-Files (the comic adaptation of which is also on Rozum's c.v.) or Twin Peaks and that quality has earned it early descriptions as being similar to the work of Grant Morrison or Alan Moore. I'll acknowledge that those comparisons are pretty apt, yes, but the work itself isn't as heavily swaddled in cultural allusions as Moore's work nor is it as self-consciously smartypants as Morrison's can be.* That sells it short, though, or at least misleads the reader. This isn't a copycat book trying to be like the work of someone else in particular. This has its own special flavor of strange, its own bizarre and crunchy heart, and deserves to be judged on its own merit rather than in comparison to the work of someone else. It's too early to tell whether this has been merged with the normal DCU or if it's in a world of its own (though it feels like the latter) but either way, the scale of the story and the slice of story-world it's shown us so far are perfectly suited to my tastes.

So what didn't I like? One thing: one of the conditions of the first issue's semi-cliffhanger ending is itself contradicted by information we already have; rather, more specifically, a pronouncement made by another character is contradicted by that information. I can't say another word without including spoilers so I'll stop there and simply say that I find that kind of narrative ellipsis a little cheap because it can so easily be resolved and effectively undone in the second issue according to my reading of what information we've been given thus far. This is a better book than that. This is a much better book than that. This is a really good book. Xombi is easily the best "new" book I've read since American Vampire and - that one cryptic caveat of complaint aside - I don't hesitate for a second to encourage you to buy it.

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* Let neither of those be seen as anything less than the honesty of a professed fanboy; I love the creative output of both of them for all that I sometimes tire of the things Moore likes to say to people off the comic book page.