Solving one’s own near-murder is never easy.
Creative Staff:
Story: Peter Milligan
Art: Inaki Miranda
Colors: Eva De La Cruz
Letterer: Sal Cipriano
What They Say:
When Dan Collins wakes to finds his life hanging by a thread, he must use his astral projection to discover who tried to kill him. Who is the beautiful mystic who tries to help him? Why does August Fryne want Dan’s soul – and what does it have to do with a demon who seems to be Dorian Gray? A weird, occult detective thriller about life, death – and whatever lies in between.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of my favorite writers going back to the invasion of British authors in American comics back in the 90s was Peter Milligan. I was never able to keep up on a lot of his work over the years but anytime something came my way I was always engaged with it as an interesting project. After reading Terminal Hero a few years back, Out of Body definitely reminds me why I have a love/frustrating relationship with his writing as it takes a while to get into the groove of it and suss the parts out of it. With this series, he’s working with the talented artist Inaki Miranda, who has a sprawling project underway elsewhere at AfterShock. His work here is pretty solid as always with some great character designs and layouts that make for a fun read. It’s all well and easily colored by Eva De La Cruz that helps to make it all the more interesting to read.
The premise for this book isn’t exactly awkward but it has a couple of areas that just aren’t clear yet, notably with the characters we open with as it hints to our lead being some chosen one or key player in events that are to be revealed. What the main focus on, and what we’ll comment on, is with the main character of Dan Collins. Dan’s part of a research institute that’s using some form of a piece of LSD in order to work with patients to help them through their issues. It’s not exactly research that seems to have a lot of fans and it’s mostly involving people with drug issues that are being helped, so there’s a mix of things going on here. What we see is that Dan had gone to a bar to meet someone that he was invited there by, though it’s obscured who that was, and someone got the drop on him outside and nearly killed him.
He spends this issue in a coma where he’s aware of everything going on, which means he sees the parade of people coming in from family and co-workers and friends that are trying to just ease him a little and connect. This lets us get to know everyone pretty well in the basic sense and how everything operates in his world. It’s certainly intriguing, especially as he gets a little help from his own drug to start exploring the tug of the world beyond. It’s alongside this that we also meet Abi, a psychic elsewhere in the country who is loosely connecting with him as he’s between places up until this moment and she’s trying to nudge him back to the world of the living, though this moment when he’s freer because of the drug is what allows her to start making clearer contact.
In Summary:
While Out of Body doesn’t wow me right out of the gate with its story, I’m long familiar enough with Milligan’s works to know that we’ve got a solid build coming here. There are definitely some good and easy hooks to this to get into it with and I’m enjoying some of the visual design of it, especially once Dan ends up getting on his own drug and experiencing this coma in a whole new way. There’s plenty of solid potential to be had with this series and I’m definitely curious to see where the team will go with this knowing how crazy Milligan can get.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: June 2nd, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
