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25th April 2024

Science fiction

REVIEW: Symmetry #1

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Symmetry #1 (review)
(Image Comics/Top Cow, December 2015)
Writer: Matt Hawkins

This intelligent, compelling comic by writer (and editor) Matt Hawkins has its roots manifestly embedded in “The Time Machine”, a book written by H.G. Wells in 1895 (Heineman).

In “The Time Machine”, the nameless English voyager in his time travelling machine heads into a far future (802701 AD) where humans have evolved into two different species: the golden, beautiful, harmless and thoughtless Eloi, who live above the world’s surface, and the brutish subterranean Morlocks, who tend to machines, perform tasks the purpose of which is long forgotten, and who prey upon the frivolous Eloi. It was and remains a haunting tale which has not dated at all, but it carries a significant social message.

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Collapse: Isolation #1 – Something to Take Your Mind Off the End of the World

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Collapse: Isolation #1
Rising Sun Comics, October 1, 2015
Writers: R.P. Foster & Russ Pirozek

Rising Sun Comics’ “Collapse: Isolation” rides the current fin de siecle vogue of comic books that deal with a post-apocalyptic version of Earth. “Collapse”’s Earth has gone through a nuclear world war, which gave rise to mutated humans, who in turn waged war on normal humans before another bomb made the surface completely uninhabitable. This brief recap of what happened within the story in the comic occurred in a couple of pages, and unfortunately it is the only interesting part of the whole issue.

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The X-Files: Deviations – A Whole Lot of Nothing

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The X-Files: Deviations – Time and Being
IDW Publishing, March 2016
Writer: Amy Chu

In March 2016, American comic book publisher IDW Publishing launched a publishing campaign dubbed ‘Deviations’. This campaign at essence is a set of standalone stories for IDW Publishing’s titles that play around with the concept of alternate realities, not as a plot point but as an entire concept. The “Deviations” one-shot issues do not explain why the presented reality is different from the established one, if indeed such an explanation is necessary, and instead each issue jumps straight into the parallel universe story. In the “Transformers: Deviations” one-shot, a character that died in mainstream community survived. In the “X-Files: Deviations” issue, the male protagonist of the famous science fiction television series, Fox Mulder, is replaced in the narrative by the character’s sister.

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The Five #1: The Birth of 21st Century Archetypes

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The Five #1 (review)
( Mysteria Maxima Media, April 2016)
Writer: Laith Tierney

An independent publication from Australia, issue one of The Five explores the creation of a modern Illuminati. Members of this secret society are a pantheon of sorts: a god of international money markets, a god of global fame, a goddess of pornography, a god of tinpot mysticism (which is, perhaps, the most awkward fit of the line-up of characters) and in a surprising twist at the end, a goddess of global terrorism.

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