Image Comics reviews 9/24/25 – Hyde Street 9, Void Rivals 23

Hyde Street 9

This issue features the origin of Dr. Ego, plastic surgeon extraordinaire who operates on the vain and narcissistic who arrive at his office to fix flaws that don’t exist. Writer Geoff Johns has always excelled at these one-off origin stories and Dr. Ego’s is the best so far in Hyde Street.

Eugene Ego’s father was a surgeon who did facial repairs including on one very famous starlet in a fun twist. By 1997, Dr. Ego established his own practice and operated on his patients who couldn’t stop getting his treatments. Upon arriving on Hyde Street, Dr. Ego isn’t that interested in collecting souls so much as being able to keep performing surgeries. There’s a funny line about Ego doing some pro bono work for legitimate innocents that stumble onto his office.

The only aspect of the issue that Johns probably should have considered before including was a patient being an overweight black woman whose husband owned a fried chicken franchise. Johns doesn’t have a reputation of being questionable with character decisions like this, but it’s a case where someone else at Ghost Machine — maybe editor-in-chief Brian Cunningham should have raised the concern that this would land wrong with some readers.

Joining Johns this issue is artist Francis Portela, whose clean style makes for a tremendous fit for Hyde Street. Portela has no trouble with the more exaggerated nature of Dr. Ego’s patients while keeping standard portrayals of Mr. X-Ray and the monster-infused Pranky. If original artist Ivan Reis needs an extended break, Portela would make for an ideal regular artist. Colorist Brad Anderson completements Portela’s style wonderfully while letterer Ron Leigh conveys sound elements so well with his sound effect fonts.

Besides the shaky characterization of one of Dr. Ego’s patients, this was an outstanding origin issue that fully establishes a new player on Hyde Street.

Rating: 9 out of 10