Review: Nomen Omen Volume 3

Before picking up this book for review, I wondered why I’d heard so little about it. Nomen Omen has the look of a flagship Image series. Online buzz about it, however, seems sparse. The answer appears to lie in its production; Nomen Omen is not an Image-created book. It is in fact an Italian comic, with Image distributing the translated version to English-speaking markets. This seems to have resulted in a little less press than a book like this would usually receive.

So what is Nomen Omen? It’s an urban fantasy story, centered on 21-year-old Manhattanite Becky Kumar. Becky, it turned out early in volume 1, is a witch. Since this revelation, she has encountered all manner of magical entities. That leads us to this volume where she finally takes on the story’s main antagonist, King Taranis.

An impressive amount of research seems to have gone into this story. Writer Marco B. Bucci’s afterword’s delve into the mythology behind various characters and concepts. The worldbuilding is truly epic in scale. However, not all of this is clearly conveyed in the actual story. As a result, the first volume was quite hard to follow; I can imagine several readers being unwilling to push through. But there are some books where it can help your enjoyment to give up on trying to understand everything, and just go along for the ride. Nomen Omen, on the whole, is one of those books. In that regard (and others), it brings to mind Grant Morrison’s Invisibles, mixed in with a bit of Fables.

This ‘final’ volume brings Nomen Omen to a very eventful climax. But if you want the story neatly wrapped up, you will be disappointed. 15 issues was never going to be enough to tell a tale of this scope. The ending leads directly into the creative team’s sequel series, Arcadia. Fans will now need to wait for Image to release Arcadia. Unless, of course, you speak Italian.

I haven’t yet touched on one of the biggest reasons to read this book; Nomen Omen is quite easy to recommend on the art alone. Jacopo Camagni handles most of the art and colors. Fabio Mancini is responsible for painting the glorious dream sequences, whilst Fabiola Ienne colored some issues. Between the three of them, the end results are truly magical. Camagni’s fight scenes (a key part of this volume) are fantastic. Mancini’s paintings are otherworldly. As with earlier volumes, color is used brilliantly as a key element of the storytelling.

Nomen Omen deserves a larger audience, and gets a recommendation from me on that basis. If mythology-based urban fantasy is your thing, you won’t regret it.

Writing – 4 Stars
Art – 5 Stars
Colors – 5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

Writer: Marco B. Bucci
Artist & Colorist: Jacopo Camagni
Dream Sequence Painting: Fabio Mancini
Additional Colors: Fabiola Ienne
Publisher: Image Comics

Author Profile

Yavi Mohan

Yavi Mohan is a comic writer (and more frequently, comic reader) based in London. He is frequently overwhelmed by the number of comics in his reading list, to the extent that it sometimes delays his reading. This list includes every issue ever published with Spider-Man as the main character.