A tale traversing time, "Resurrectionists" #1 introduces readers to a group of people with the ability, whether known or unknown to them, to experience their lives both past and future. It's a solid concept surrounding a modern day heist story and delivers just what a reader would want in a first issue.

Fred Van Lente is an industry veteran and knows how to craft a first issue. Outside a major corporation, a woman in a black catsuit displays the ability to call back several past lives and their inherent abilities when taking down the swarm of security guards protecting the building. The reader is given a tease of what these powers look like when harnessed properly, while Van Lente leaves an ominous feeling over that scene, then shifts the story to another character just discovering these abilities for the first time. The action continues moving forward in both the past and the present as both Jericho and the reader discover how these powers manifest for the first time. The story itself is straightforward, which allows the reader to focus on the characters and get to know them before the plot turns happen. It will be interesting to find out just why these abilities manifest when they do -- is it age? External triggers? Perhaps a specific even in a previous life? And what would happen if multiple previous lives tried to reach forward? Or what happens if Jericho experiences multiple past lives at once? What happens if a future life of Jericho tries to access him? The reader is shown that more than one can be accessed in the present, if Jericho can't yet handle that will he overload? How other Resurrectionists react when confronted with one another is another avenue that will be fun to explore.

Maurizio Rosenzweig provides fluid cartooning throughout. The panel layouts are smart and the action is clean and easily distinguishable. There isn't much change in style or coloring as the story bounces from era to era. The character renderings become more defined as the story moves forward but this looks more like the artist becoming comfortable with the characters rather than a specific choice, and may have more to do with Rosenzweig and inker Moreno Dinisio falling into sync as a team. The characters' eyes are all very expressive regardless of the page, which helps raise the stakes and drama of the script. The colors service the scene at hand and almost serve as the soundtrack to the action being experienced. Nate Piekos provides lettering for the book and his choices are odd. Word balloons have some ribbon-like tails that pull attention away from the art and the letters themselves are reminiscent of fonts that Marvel would use for feral characters in the late '90s. They seem like arbitrary decisions in this issue, but perhaps serve a greater purpose to the story down the road.

This is a fun concept that clearly leaves the reader with many questions and possibilities surrounding it. As more of Ressurectionists are discovered it will be interesting to see how they affect not only the present moment of the story but the past and the future as well.