One of the craziest chase scenes ever.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Millar
Art: Sean Gordon Murphy
What They Say:
From ancient Rome to the roaring twenties to the 1980s music scene, Corbin and Danny- the world’s first time travelers-continue to wreak havoc with the time-stream, and get into more hijinks with some of history’s most notorious figures! And it’s all happening while the world-and their bosses-are watching!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Chrononauts has certainly worked the familiar beats of a project that you can see being done theatrically (and we knew it was as the first issue hit), and there’s a kind of thrill in essentially seeing it storyboarded out here and wanting to see it in that form. That said, what we get here is just as thrilling and engaging to watch with all the energy necessary to power it thanks to Sean Murphy’s artwork. There’s such a dynamic feeling about with the layouts and the design of it that you really do fly through the book just as fast as the characters are going. Which is fine, because there’s so much detail here that a couple of re-reads makes it all the more worthwhile to check out all the backgrounds and facial expressions.
Having seen Danny and Corbin living it up across time in so many different locations, you knew it was going to catch up to them sooner rather than later. Both in what the team from the “present” day are trying to do in containing them and the interactions in the past that they touch in pretty much every era. While it’s fun to see how Danny is living it up in the 70’s, having taken over the creative role of so many and making himself into a true wunderkind that tells Morrissey to take a hike, you also know that the impacts are going to be weirdly reaching in a lot of ways. What’s really fun to watch though is as Danny gets a letter from himself from a different time period telling him to head to the past to save himself before it all goes south as Corbin’s already dead. That means a mission to save himself and Corbin is underway and Danny knows first and foremost that that must be done.
What ensues is essentially the entire book with the two in a sports car trying to escape from Mannix and his team that have come to capture them. The problem is that capture part, as it really should be just kill and be done with. Which Mannix does get to at one point, but not soon enough. The two groups engage in such a chase across time in so many locations and cause so much destruction that it really has to be catastrophic, if it actually impacts the timeline – something that hasn’t really been addressed as far as I can see. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just having an absolute blast as the pair evade and do their best to survive before they can figure out their next move. That move isn’t all that well thought out, which really does fit what these two are like overall at this stage, but it makes for what should be a really fun conclusion the next time around now that the suit has ended up in even more dangerous hands than these two goofs.
In Summary:
Chrononauts essentially assaults the senses here and takes you on quite the ride. I’ll admit, a lot of attention at the moment is on the visual thrill of the Mad Max: Fury Road movie. While I don’t expect the Chrononauts film to match it, if they manage to capture even half the energy of this book in this particular issue with its crazy chase sequence across time, they’ll definitely be striving for some lofty but attainable goals. There’s a crazy kind of fun to all of this as the guys ride it out as best as they can, and the collateral damage is just striking in seeing it all unfold. I can’t help but wonder about some of the mechanics of all of this, having been raised on hard science fiction, but I’m able to push it off to the side simply to enjoy the surreal and hilarious run that we get here. Danny and Corbin are definitely far too much fun to watch in this form.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Image Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 13th, 2015
MSRP: $2.99