Creative Staff:
Story: Mike Richardson
Art: Fernando Baldo
What they say:
Third class engineer Paxon’s return trip home from the planet Poseidon takes a dramatic turn for the worse as The Vanguard is struck down in orbit, leaving him and a ragged band of survivors looking for a way to get planet side!
Content: (Please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers:)
Issue two of Deep Gravity takes a significant and dramatic turn from the series’ principal introduction. Where the first issue functioned as a relatively slow but intriguing orientation to the hostile world of the planet Poseidon, humanities presence there, and engineer Paxon’s not so sensible reason for making the trip, (stalking his ex, basically,) issue two begins with the Earth-bound ship The Vanguard being blasted apart in orbit and the struggle of Paxon and a shell-shocked group of survivors making their way to the bridge, and hopefully, rescue. Standing in their way are out-of-control fires, stretches of vacuum, and multitudes of escaped and deadly animal specimens.
It makes for a pretty tense affair.
I certainly wasn’t expecting this kind of 180 in Deep Gravity’s narrative, especially a turn that takes place entirely off-planet. If anything I expected things to heat up on the surface and go from there. (Though that’s coming, I’m sure.) But this is a good thing. The Vanguard is the only exit off-planet, and now it’s gone. The stakes have been raised significantly, something I was worried may not have happened given the first issues fairly soft opening.
The suddenly fast-moving plot is paced deftly and Richardson does an excellent job of breeding numerous engaging conflicts not just between characters, but in the overall plot due to the fact that everyone is now trapped not only on the ship, but the deadly planet Poseidon as well. And rescue won’t be coming for at least three years, the minimum amount of time to make a one-way trip. Everyone is in some deep shit and I love it, not least because of the somewhat Alien-esque tone that comes across in the issue, what with everyone being trapped in a spaceship with hungry monstrosities and all. If I’ve got one gripe, it’s with the character Drummond, who is ostensibly the villain in this scenario. His oppositions to Paxon’s plans for the survivors lack any kind of real logic, bordering on outright stupidity, and feel a little bit like him simply filling the role of Paxon’s foil. But it’s not a plot de-railing kind of problem.
If anything, the art has improved as well. Baldo’s panels have opened up a bit to accommodate the more destructive and speedy scope of the issue. I still admire his grainy, textured style, and there’s a few really excellent splash pages depicting the carnage wrought on The Vanguard and her crew.
In summary:
Deep Gravity #2 takes a pleasantly unexpected turn and is a much quicker, engaging read, and I expect that trend to continue for coming issues. I’d say it’s definitely worth jumping in on the ground floor of this series.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: August 27th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
