The following contains spoilers for David Messina's 3 Keys #1, available now from Image Comics.

Image Comics is known for its limited series and fresh, new takes on comic book formulae. From Golden Rage's elderly female protagonists to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy mashup that is Brian K. Vaughan's Saga, the publisher has consistently brought new and entertaining voices and imagery into series both old(ish; Image is only 30 years old) and new. However, that isn't to say that Image is obsessed with newness for newness' sake. As a matter of fact, one of Image's newest comics consists of such a variety of throwbacks that it quickly jumps from new content to a trip down memory lane while sipping into some of the oldest elements of horror in Western media.

David Messina's 3 Keys is a romp through the boroughs of New York, a de facto superhero Mecca, with ancient, magical artifacts and interdimensional travel at its core. Even though the setting and setup are fun enough, what takes center stage is the throwback nature of the comic. The art style and several of the characters are reminiscent of the 1990s and the bright, highly stylized visuals more common then and in the early 2000s. The most prominent aspect of the comic's lore, however, is the Lovecraftian horrors that populate the pages, making Eldritch Horror a major part of the comic from a Cthulhu-like being's appearance on page one moving forward.

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3 Keys' art style is unique from the first page. Where Messina's work on Han Solo & Chewbacca was quite realistic with just a bit of smoothing common in digital comic book art, 3 Keys offers an entirely different style. It's bright and features some intentional printing errors and features on the characters that make them look not necessarily like they are in a comic book, but that they have come from one. The character dialogue similarly reads as being from a 90s series, with a lot of undue emphasis on characters' sexuality and interests that feels pulled straight out of a comic of the era. Even the character designs feel pulled from the 80s and 90s, with humanoid tigers à la Thundercats playing a major role in the proceedings.

All of this blindingly bright Gen Xer nostalgia isn't the ultimate goal, though. The story centers on interdimensional Eldritch horrors (the first one shown a clear echo of Cthulhu) making their way to Earth's reality to bring about the apocalypse. Aside from being distinctly similar to the setup of The Call of Cthulhu, the story's emphasis on these horrors only deepens as the story begins to show its hand regarding some of its major players, the cousin of the story's main protagonist and her humanoid big cat companion, wielding one of the "Three Keys," ancient artifacts that unlock the realms and also serve as weapons to keep them safe. These are pieces of a single key, a weapon so large and unwieldy as to be more at home in an anime or manga, both of which contribute to the overall aesthetic of the comic as well, which especially seems to draw once again from the anime of the 2000s and 1990s.

While careful not to retread any ground, which the unique and occasionally disturbing story does well, the clear callbacks and references in 3 Keys are a welcome but of nostalgia within its pages. It's a violent, horror-fueled romp through a space of psychological dread that puts an interesting spin on Lovecraftian horror without sticking with the tried and true formula thereof. In doing so, Messina creates a world that is as fun and fresh as it is well-trodden and spooky.