Nice place, no atmosphere.
Creative Staff:
Story and Art: Matt Kindt
Colors: Sharlene Kindt
Letters: ?
What They Say:
For issue six:
Time is running out. At the bottom of the ocean, the Dept. H base is flooding. Tensions are rising within the isolated crew. Trapped with her father’s murderer, will Mia be able to survive long enough to solve the mystery?
For issue seven:
As the water rises inside their base, tensions rise among the Dept. H crew. They desperately try to stop the flooding of the headquarters, but a sacrifice hardly buys them any more time. They’ve got twelve hours to stem the tide . . .
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dept. H is flooding, and with it goes the opportunity for Mia to catch her father’s murderer. As the water washes away the clues and forces Mia to focus on matters other than the investigation, tempers flare and Mia wonders if any of the crew is worth saving.
It doesn’t help that the taciturn Q barely warns Mia about a wave of water heading her way, or that Q fights with one of the crewmembers to keep Jerome locked in one of the flooding areas (Jerome, if you don’t remember, is the doctor who contracted some sort of disease and went insane because of it). Mia manages to free Jerome, who scampers off to some dark corner of the base. Another crewmember, Aaron, chases after him, and Mia goes to speak with Roger—her father’s oldest friend—literally telling him to give her a reason why she should care about any of them surviving.
Roger begins to speak about Aaron, detailing the young man’s history with Mia’s father. Issue seven basically just cuts back and forth between Roger and Mia talking about Aaron, and Aaron confronting Jerome, who apparently discovered a cure for the H virus. Now, the comic might have mentioned the H virus before, but it sure didn’t ring any bells for me when I read this issue, which is a problem, considering it’s too late in the game to be introducing new story bits like that. Either the comic did introduce this idea in an earlier issue and I forgot it, or it just introduced it now, and no matter which option turns out to be true, it represents a flaw in the story.
Really, story is what this is all about. I understand the plot of DeptH: an astronaut travels to an underwater research lab to investigate the possible murder of her scientist father. That part comes through just fine (and makes for one hell of a logline). However, I have no idea what the actual story is. At their heart, every good story says something about the universe or the human condition. The playwright Lajos Egri called this the “premise.” The premise gives the story purpose, and the strength of the purpose makes a story resonate with readers. Premise is the reason why I can read “In a Grove” (translated, of course) or Romeo and Juliet despite both works taking place in time periods and settings I have never encountered firsthand. Humanity, for all its wondrous variety, does contain some universal drives, fears, thoughts, and feelings.
I don’t know what the premise is for DeptH. The comic provides some tantalizing clues, but it could go so many different ways. Memory plays an important role in this comic—Mia possesses an eidetic memory, and each issue contains a flashback—and that may well hold the key to understanding the premise, but so far no clear point has been made about memory. The same goes for daughter-father relationships, or the argument for studying our planet before venturing out into the stars. Either of those themes could make for a decent premise, but the comic raises them and then drops them for a different theme or plot thread.
This lack of premise doesn’t automatically make DeptH a bad comic. Indeed, it has consistently garnered high praise since issue one. But it does make it feel pointless right now. The Kindts do great in other areas, though. The setting is marvelous, and brings me back every time. The art style also stands as a high point—rough and almost hand-hewn; ugly in a way that draws attention and keeps it. All of that is great, but without a clear purpose, it just makes for a Fabergé Egg: a beautiful shell covering nothing but air.
In Summary:
DeptH issues six and seven plunge the reader back under the sea with Mia and the doomed crew, and as always it presents the reader with unique, compelling art, and a fantastic setting. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to pinpoint the purpose of the story yet, and the whole comic feels hollower and hollower as it progresses. I’m holding out hope that it works better when read in one sitting, but for now Dr. J gives this a….
Grade: B
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: (Issue six) 21 September 2016; (Issue seven) 19 October 2016
MSRP: $3.99 apiece
