I received the hardcover collection of Joe Hill and Stuart Immonen's "Plunge", a 6-issue miniseries covering the discovery of a lost (40 years ago) freighter is the waters between the US and Russia. A US company is trying to recover the freighter and enlists a small recovery team and a scientist. There's a lot more to it, obviously, but suffice to say that they find a lot of the crew...and the crew isn't quite what we think they are. The recovery team then has to figure out how to GTFO.
It's a pretty good story...Hill was going for 80's style sci-fi horror like Aliens, The Thing, etc. I think he pretty much got there. He used a lot of the familiar tropes to good effect.
Immonen's art is good. I don't recall seeing it before. Hill really likes him, and others I respect do, too...for his work on this book...and I'll say that it's good. Would I buy the book for Immonen's art alone? Nope. But it certainly did not detract from the story.
The collection packaging is very nice. The slipcover is translucent, which the cover artist uses to good effect. The pages are matte finish (but not newsprint), which I generally prefer to glossy pages. Hill and Immonen have interviews in the back of the book. Hill also has an epilogue as well as a transcript of his email with the original pitch for Plunge. Variant cover art (by Gary Frank) is also reprinted.
Is it worth the $25 cover price? Ummm....probably not. Is it worth a significant preorder discount? Yeah, I'd say so.
Horror really isn't my thing, but I give DC tons of credit for taking the plunge (pun intended) with Joe Hill. One way to build the market is by doing new genres. Hill House was such an attempt. Hill House editor Mark Doyle got the ax recently in one of the purges, so it will be interesting to see what happens to this sub-label...and the whole idea of horror comics at DC.