Writer: Antony Johnston
Art: Ben Templesmith
If you don’t follow video games at all you probably picked this up because it looks weird. I picked this up because I follow video games and comics. Since this came out before the game, I’m going to assume this acts as a prequel story to the game. I haven’t played the game yet, but I wanted to fully immerse myself in the world of Dead Space before it came out. The last time a prequel came out for a game I didn’t read it and kind of regretted it (the game in that case is Mass Effect).
The thing that really caught my attention about Dead Space is that it looked like some kind of video game version of the movie “Event Horizon”. That locked me in immediately, if you can capture the kind of power and terror in a video game that “Event Horizon” evoked I’ll be a fan. Johnston’s script for the comic series did a superb job in this fashion. It definitely created a very intriguing feel to the world we’ll enter in the video game. Unfortunately this script feels more like a Doom 3 influence rather than an “Event Horizon”. Maybe it will feel a lot more like that movie when I get into the game. Anyway, one of the smartest things about this series is that you still have questions when you’re done! Honestly, this barely gives you any answers.
Basically the reader is thrust into a world where there is a mining colony on a different planet and they come across something strange. It’s a massive piece of rock with strange red writing all over it, so it looks like there is some kind of intelligence behind it. Here’s the real interesting part in my opinion, apparently there is a religious cult in existence called “Unitarians” and they refer to these things as Markers. Now this is some really awesome stuff and I loved this story arc. Apparently this is the second Marker to be found, so who knows what happened with that one! I can only hope that someone will develop further stories to support this game, so far on a story level, I’m locked in. Basically all kinds of havoc starts happening on this colony after the Marker is found. People start to exhibit sleeping disorders and strange psychotic disorders. Don’t think it can get weirder or worse? Wait till after one of the major stages of mining take place called Planet Crack once the Marker is moved off world, then all hell breaks loose. I won’t really give away anything else, sorry for the spoiler parts already, but it’s just so intriguing and everything I’ve said so far has only brought me to more questions! Hell, they don’t even really fully explain what a “Planet Crack” is and how that mining operation really works in full.
This is going to sound really odd coming from me, but I actually didn’t mind Templesmith’s art that much. I think after a couple issues I kind of got used to it. The art has a very messy feel to it, most of the humans drawn look kind of deformed in some strange way, but they’re supposed to be regular humans. I really hated the way he drew the fingers though, that just looked really bad to me. Granted the art is unique and worked here and there, but it just didn’t evoke the kind of power it should have in some senses. Honestly Templesmith’s background drawings were far superior to his figures. Just look at the two page spread during the Planet Crack sequence, that picture just looked absolutely awesome. I seriously want a poster of just that image! I think one of the saving graces to this art was his coloring work. That was simply impressive and that conveyed a lot more power than his art ever could. I think in some senses the creatures and people are supposed to have sort of an unrealistic feel, but I don’t know. Personally, I’d like to see this with much more realistic figure drawing to see what would work best, and just have Templesmith do the coloring. There’s no way this issue would look as dark and fearsome without that aspect.
Overall this was a very worthwhile read. If you’re anticipating the video game or already like it I definitely recommend giving the series a whirl. Don’t get too turned off by the art like I was at first, you do tend to get used to it and does kind of work with the script. Definitely an enjoyable read and I really want to find out what happens now. I just hope they make more Dead Space in the future, because so far it seems to be off to a very good start.
Overall Rating: 4/5