The more you fix it, the more it goes wrong.
Creative Staff:
Story: Rick Remender
Art: Jonathan Wayshak
Colors: Jordan Boyd
What They Say:
Every living creature on Earth has been devolved – the evolutionary clock turned back, reverting all life to odd mutations and prehistoric incarnations. The cities of man are little more than bloody territories ruthlessly dominated by tribal Neanderthals ruling from the backs of mammoths, packs of saber-toothed tigers, and giant man-eating insects.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I haven’t had too much experience overall with Rick Remender’s works outside of the superhero stuff and that material mostly fell flat for me. So with Dynamite publishing a new five-issue limited series focused on something original in conjunction with artist Jonathan Wayshak, it felt like a good time to give him another try to see if it’ll click for me. Original works continue to be on the rise and that’s been a boon for those like me that enjoy our superheroes but want something a little more in a monthly digestible form. Devolution certainly serves that up and while my mind quickly views it in theatrical terms there’s a whole lot to like here in general with what the team has done. It’s something that you can easily see living beyond the miniseries, depending on how it ends.
The premise is solid enough in that we’re introduced to a near future world where after realizing that the root of all our problems came down to war, and a large chunk of that based on religious belief, scientists put together a “cure” of sorts called DVO-8, which would reduce the part of the brain that deals in belief. The idea it would wipe out religion in that sense and the whole aspect that leads to warfare in wanting to believe you were better than someone else and pound them into submission is laid out in an interesting way here, particularly on top of the montage of how terrible things are. That the strain, when tested out, goes bad is no surprise. It turns out that what they created was truly viral and began leaping species while also spreading to other aspects of the body, resulting in a whole lot of people and animes devolving into different and more primitive forms when infected. And thus, the world falls to ruin.
Into this ruined world, one whose air is in far better shape of course, we follow the character of Raja, a young woman who hasn’t seen another human for some time. Amusingly, her father kept reinforcing with her that she would be the savior of humanity, a different kind of religious belief, in that she would help those researching a cure in San Francisco to take it to the next level. We see a couple of aspects of her journey, such as the devolved types she faces in Vegas, as well as a small group of humans that have put together a wasteland kind of fort where it’s ruled by an iron first. She ends up helping out someone that got caught outside and ends up trapped herself since she was using him to look for some supplies for her journey.
The book sets up a lot of things and puts Raja as our central focus yet takes her out of it for a decent chunk of it with the backstory material and time spent with the couple from the camp that get screwed over when they try to slip out of the camp and screw. We also get a nice nod to a lunar group that’s following Raja on radar as they seem to have a really vested interest in her as well. Though the book spends most of its focus really on the camp and the kind of Walked Dead-like atmosphere of post-apocalypse survival aspects that we expect, it jumps around well and fleshes out a lot of things while still having a whole lot more that it can dig into, and deeply should it choose to. There are tantalizing ideas here that can be executed and you can really see this as a long running book depending on how this miniseries unfolds.And if Raja can become a compelling character.
In Summary:
Devolution hasn’t been on my radar until I ended up with a copy in hand and I’m definitely digging it as one of the best surprises of the last few months – and a great way to kick off the new year. Remender’s script is solid and provides enough characterization to drive the narrative forward even while doing an infodump – and a welcome one at that. Wayshak’s artwork is spot on perfect for this with its rougher style and Boyd’s coloring to complement it expertly in making it feel raw, dirty, and properly post-apocalyptic. I really liked Wayshak’s layouts – which will work better in print than in the digital form I have, as there’s a great spread to things to give it a proper feeling of scale and epicness, something that I hope he gets to utilize more depending on how big this book goes. This is a series to watch.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 20th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
