The opening salvo in trying to save the world.
Creative Staff:
Story: Stephanie Phillips
Art: Robert Carey
Colors: Rosh
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
A series of unexplained, violent crimes on Election Day around the U.S. leads the FBI to zero in on a covert group of Russian terrorists.
When a Texas journalism student named Miriam accidentally finds herself mixed up in the investigation, her life will never be the same. With political espionage, treason, and even mind control, can she clear her name and stop the U.S. from entering into a new Cold War?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Being a child of the 80s and growing up amid the Cold War and its “end” as we saw in the 90s, I’m always up for a good story involving remnants of such things or a new round of it. This story from Stephanie Phillips that was conceived by Janosh Neumann with his wife Victorya, definitely draws upon the realities that Neumann came of age with himself in the 90s as part of the FSB Academy and more. The opening installment teases plenty of things that the mind is ready to fill in the blanks for but gives no answers, just teases. Which Robert Carey and colors Rosh are more than capable of bringing to life. It’s a bit of a confusing installment in some ways because we have a lot thrown at us but those that like thrillers like this and have experience in the larger storytelling style will handle it easily because of the nature of the comic format.
The premise puts us right on election day where something unusual is going down. Four different polling stations across the country suddenly have everyone’s phones inside ringing and then they go violent, leading to multiple deaths. We see a minor flavor of this with Miriam and her roommate where while jostling about their days a bit, the power goes out briefly and Miriam has a weird feeling that puts her out of sorts for the moment. It’s a hard to explain moment but it’s tied to who she really is. As we learn later in the issue, she was born in Russia but ended up in the US as a baby, never knew her parents or any other potential family, and has otherwise lived a normal life. But the FBI are ready to question her because of a similar incident where the only person not impacted was also, surprise surprise, Russian.
We do get some time before the agents deal with Miriam that’s decently done as they interface with the local cops first and try to figure out what’s going on since a small town like this is easier to get to the bottom of things of as there are fewer things going on. But the whole thing takes a stranger turn later when the agents are questioning Miriam – in the park of all places – and a guy comes out of nowhere and quickly and brutally takes them out physically. Again, the easy imagination pieces work here as he talks about having not seeing her since she was a baby and all and that they have to stop World War Three, but the seeds are laid for a big picture kind of event that has been in the making for decades, a leftover element from the Cold War perhaps. Again, easy to imagine if you’ve seen enough stories like this or lived through the period.
In Summary:
The opening installment of Red Atlantis is solidly put together on the technical side but I felt like it just needed a little something stronger to hook us with. A lot of what’s here feels terribly familiar, having grown up with decades of Cold War style stories behind me, but I also like the potential of it. Phillips has put together some fun books recently so I’m game with their stuff and I like Robert Carey’s art style and how the characters come across. There’s a lot left unsaid here as expected but there isn’t enough character material to really get me to connect with the characters that we do get. A lot is going to ride on Miriam it seems, which is fine, but it felt like we needed to see a bit more of her normal life that’s about to be wiped away and a bit less of the agents and the cops in order to ease into it.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: November 4th, 2020
MSRP: $4.99
