Fighting in the face of extinction.
Creative Staff:
Story: Ryan Ferrier
Art: Alejandro Aragorn
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Ryan Ferrier
What They Say:
Rider, an ax-wielding wasteland survivor, carves a bloody path across a war-torn North America ruled over by the Lords, the mysterious Father, and their cult followers as he searches for his abducted wife and child. Information from one of Father’s hired mercenaries could lead Rider to his family–if the Lords don’t take him out first. *From the creator of D4VE and Marvel’s Secret Wars: Battleworld. *Fast-paced manga-style action in a Road Warrior setting.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
End of the world stories are admittedly a dime a dozen but there are many that are well-produced and engaging to read – even when it feels like the world is actually burning down in reality. Death Orb comes from writer Ryan Ferrier, my first experience with his writing I believe, and artist Alejandro Aragorn. Ferrier plays with familiar ideas here and basically drops us into it without much backstory to work with yet but it has a good flow to it that has a kind of theatrical feeling. Alejandro Aragorn makes that all the more real with some wonderfully bleak landscapes that Chris O’Halloran colors brilliantly and Aragorn’s designs have a lot of detail to it that I like in what it does, making for an enjoyable experience overall.
While we don’t know the how of this world of ours ending up like it is, we’re introduced to a far-flung future where it’s all been downhill and we’re about to hit final bottom as an extinction event is almost upon us. Here, a man named Father has built a kind of religion that’s set to provide an escape or transcendence when it happens and there are all sorts of science going on with it that we get glimpses of. He’s intent on getting a hold of a man known only as Rider who is searching for his wife and unborn child that was taken by Father’s men previously. Suffice to say there’s no love here but a connection that will get explored in this five-issue series. The setup is solid in this regard even if it moves back and forth a bit instead of a linear piece or a preface with text exploring it in detail.
Naturally, most of the focus is on Rider who, of course, makes his way across the dangerous landscape on a motorcycle as he bashes heads and looks for information on his wife. He’s accosted by a group of searchers that Father sends out at the start here and that lucks him into beheading the blind old man of the group who can use mysterious powers to show Rider visions that could help him in his quest. It’s a surreal series of conversations that feels natural as they make their way to the first potential destination, a city with a hospital that may have a clue, but it’s more to showcase what Rider is capable of and the nature of the world with the action. It’s not prolonged action but what we get is pretty solid and feels like it has some good impact thanks to Aragorn’s art style and the flow of the panels.
In Summary:
Death Orb has a familiar feeling with its larger concepts but its execution is solid and I like the trappings that we get from a lot of this first issue. Aragorn and O’Halloran are doing the heavy lifting here with the artwork that lets it stand out and become engaging but I’m curious to see where Ferrier will go with it as I’m getting a Grendel-esque feeling about a lot of this. I’m intrigued by what’s presented here and there’s enough for me to keep going forward with it, particularly since it’s also a five-issue series so it’s not a huge investment in time or money.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 3rd, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
