(ARC was provided to read and review.)

When Robbie and his girlfriend Jen take shelter from the rain under an underpass at the railway just after leaving a punk rock concert, some electric force takes hold of Robbie's body and the poor guy passes out.
Jen drags him home and when he regains consciousness, there are three strange characters in the room with him and Jen. His girlfriend explains, they just turned up at her door and desperately wanted to talk to him.
Robbie finds out the fast way (and so does the reader) that a superpower (the Mantle) has taken him as the new host. Robbie isn't too big a fan of his newly gained powers, but worse is to come.
The Mantle has since 50 yrs. a regular need for new hosts as there's a real baddie who follows him basically like the plague, who goes conveniently by the same name, and he happily kills host after host, mostly even before they were able to understand and train their newly gained abilities.
So far neither the Mantle nor the three strange side-kicks have a sensible concept how to fight the Plague and from now on we follow Robbie, Jen and their first three, than fantastic four helpers on a run and hide from someone very muscular and massive with a real bad temper, who likes to crunch heads as a pastime. Yes, there's quite a bit of gore here.
The story has a few interesting twists in store. We will find out how it all started off in the 1950s between Mantle and Plague, Jen's pet turns out to be rather special and finally we hear from Mr. Plague his story in his own words.

The Mantle Vol. 1 contains the issues 1 - 5 and despite a total of five issues, I have to admit, there was too little backstory for me to really care about any of the characters.
There was even a moment where I found the story downright illogical. There's the Plague high on the heels of the Mantle and (trying not to spoil the story) lets just say, the then actual host hides in a hospital. Mr. Bada** sniffs his location out without any problem and across many miles, but when the Plagues reaches the hospital he has to ask the staff for the room where our hero is hiding??
The end (which leaves room for further issues) didn't really satisfy me either. It just wasn't the hoped for big bang. Was that all? was my first thought.

Still, I found the artwork excellent (but as mentioned, expect some gore here) and as I generally like flawed anti-superheroes, I've got no problem to give The Mantle 4 stars. Especially because the last 15 pages or so contain a real highlight for a comic fan like me, a few studies and the idea how one of the superb issue covers was developed. ( )

Showdown between the Mantle and the Plague
This comic collection deals principally with an age-old battle between two super-powered beings, the Mantle and the Plague. The Plague regularly kills the Mantle whose powers then shift to another person who then has to fight the Plague all over again. With the help of a few other powered beings, the Mantle fights on – and loses.
Here we see how all this ends. The writing and artwork are engaging and this is well worth a visit. Good characterisation but also quite a lot of gore.
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