Originally posted on Irish Comic News (7/Sept/2017)
Written by Ales Kot.
Line art by Andre Lima Araujo.
Colour art by Chris O’Halloran.
Lettering by Clayton Cowles.
Design by Tom Muller.Just to answer the question on your mind after seeing the cover for issue 1, yes that is the first panel of the comic on the cover. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen it done and I really like it. You haven’t even opened the comic and you’re already reading the story.
Issue one follows two seemingly unconnected stories. The first is a presentation in a military base where Mr. Akio is telling those that oversee the projects on the base about how he has potentially uncovered a code that would the resultant effect of bestowing superhuman abilities on regular people. Unsurprisingly, the higher-ups are unconvinced by Mr. Akio.
The other story concerns three millennial hackers, Baldwin, Elena and Nick. They spend their free time honing their hacking skills for a future hack on a bank. One of the sites they decide to test their skills on turns out to be the very base Mr. Akio is stationed at.
As issue one is about fifty pages long, it gives Kot room to flesh out the characters. The reader gets a good sense of the three hackers, as well as the situation regarding Mr. Akio and his overseers. The premise of unlocking heightened abilities merely as a result of reading a piece of code is an interesting one. The potential complications of it being released upon unsuspecting civilians is some fertile ground to start the story with.
The art is just splendid to look at. Araujo puts so much detail into the scenes. Whether it’s the base or one of the homes of the hackers, there a props peppered around each location to give each location a ‘lived in’ feel. The art really leads the reader through the story so well. Much of the story is a gradual build to the climax of issue one. A lot is just characters talking or doing everyday things. Yet that doesn’t put the reader off because of the standard of the art.
Equally the colours provided by O’Halloran are a treat. With the quality of line art Araujo puts on the page you need the standard of colour work that O’Halloran brings to the comic. A lot of the shadows cast in the art is handled through the colours which really works with the line art. And much like the line art, there a number of small details that just add to the colour art. A number of stagings have items with colours that help break up what would otherwise be a potentially monotonous background. The exit sign in the cinema for example. It caught the eye much like the real thing.
Lettering is done by Cowles. The text is easily read throughout with placement of the text where the readers eye would generally move to as they progress through each page.
All three do some great work on the climax of issue one. Line art, colour art and lettering all bring something to the table to have the best possible impact on the reader as this part of the story draws to a close. The rest of the comic is subdued by comparison. A great cliffhanger to great opener.
This is a comic I wouldn’t have missed out on. The story and art are just too dang good to ignore. It’s a comic that’s worth checking out.