A moment of real decision.
Creative Staff:
Story: Zack Kaplan
Art: Andrea Mutti
Colors: Jordan Boyd
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
As our alien business partners urge the Earth Security Agency to destroy Seattle in order to protect the planet from a deadly alien virus, covert agents scramble to uncover the truth about the outbreak’s origins. Why does the Consortium want to recover these escaped aliens so badly, and what secret are they hiding?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Sometimes getting dropped into the middle of a series isn’t easy, more so when it’s not part of a larger shared universe. I got this book in for review and I was curious because of the concept that’s appealing and because of the creative. I’ve enjoyed a few books that Zack Kaplan has put out recently so I wanted to see what he was coming up with in this particular arena. But I’ve been a big fan of Andrea Mutti for several years now and I really like when he gets to be creative and step out of the traditional a bit, which a book about alien trading partners seems like it could do. I wasn’t disappointed on either front but I also know I’m coming in mid-story and it takes time to wrap your head around the characters, situations, and the overall concept itself.
Thankfully, the book opens wit ha minor recap of sorts about what’s going on. Being introduced to the Consortium through a new interview, we get the understanding of how they view business as the evolution of connections, even if they profit from it, because it brings worlds and people together. The consortium has seen it all over the years and are hopeful that things will turn out well on Earth, which it seems to be for the most part so far. The ESA, Earth Security Agency, are handling the interactions well and there’s hope that over time that humanity can shed the problems of war and fear that plague it in general but are also complicating events with the consortium. There’s a natural distrust by a chunk of the population and it’s little surprise that there’s a secret resistance going on, made more urgent by the fact that they’ve learned some of what’s gone on with other worlds where the plan did not go right.
Where a lot of the book focuses on is the event that’s going on within Seattle as a particular neighborhood, which has been evacuated, is about to be bombed due to potential alien viral infection. There’s a group that are trying to rescue and hide some aliens on the run that may be patient zero, but there’s another one out there as well, all of which are being watched over. It’s not exactly clear, coming into this issue on its own, to be sure who is who and who is telling the truth, but the tensions are rising nicely with the resistance side having a mole in it and a lot of uncertainty about the right move. Tie that back with the ESA side that’s having to coordinate bombing an American city, even for reasons of stopping an outbreak, with the consortium leaning hard on them to get it done and done quickly, builds some really good tension here – even if there isn’t much in the way of actual payoff.
In Summary:
I was interested in this series once I learned about it from being optioned fora TV series on Amazon and definitely enjoyed the taste of I got here. Kaplan has a solid project on his hands that deals with how aliens as creatures of business would set things up in order to secure expansion and profit across the galaxy, all while having to deal with piddling local issues along the way. Kaplan keeps several things moving here and I really liked what we got out of Andrea Mutti with the artwork. It has the right kind of feeling throughout and the alien designs are definitely intriguing, making me want to head back to the prior books at some time to get a better feel for the evolution of it all. This is something that I get the sense that it would complement a show like The Expanse nicely and appeal to the same kinds of viewers, who are often comic readers themselves. Definitely worth checking out.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Image Comics / Top Cow
Release Date: June 19th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
