IDW Publishing 2015
Created & Art Direction by Ashley Wood
Written by Chris Ryall & Nelson Daniel
I’m always excited to read a number one issue and experience something new and different and you can usually count on Ashley for doing just that. Again I came into this not reading any blurbs or knowing anything about the series and honestly I think that’s helped immensely in my enjoyment of it. There’s an idea here that there are many universes other than the one we know about some smaller inhabiting our own and perhaps we’re in one that larger than we can think of has an appeal here that’s on par with the Micronauts or the Atom’s experiences and the science behind it all lends itself beautifully to introducing us the characters exploring it all.
I think the writing here is very creative and that these String Divers are in this micro-universe and we see them experience something different alongside them and have their personalities emerge for the first time, as well learning what each colour means in terms of functionality really grabs the reader’s attention and draws you in and keeps you wanting to learn more. That alongside the art which is very well conceived also keeps you in awe of the imagination required to bring new and fascinating life forms to life.
When we get to page fourteen though my world and these characters got turned upside down on me. You’ll have to experience yourself to fully understand why but suffice it to say this was something I wasn’t expecting and puts a whole new spin on things. That Red has seen things in past missions that went awry and goes through what he does here is remarkable stuff and had me instantly more invested in reading onward and discovering just what the blue blazes was going on here.
Suddenly we’re back in some lab with a microscope looking at something on a slide. Here we are introduced to a group of scientists working out of Cern in Geneva Switzerland. Well I have to say these are unlike any scientists you’ll have seen before and the fact that they are so invested in their work and consider the Divers to be like family well it’s kind of touching, weird and all around interesting as those assembled all have a hand in ensure what the String Divers do is possible. Only MME LaGrange who is the Director General comes across as a cold hearted bureaucrat and well I guess every organization even Cern has to have at least one in the mix to keep the scientists on track and moving forward.
So what the String Divers experienced in that micro-universe with those creatures who seemingly needed to head into the white light barrier thing has now reared it’s head in our world as this issue ends. It would appear that this white light has gone from universe to universe till it has breached our and if it continues onward who knows how many it will come into contact with and what the end result will mean for our world.
This was one heck of an introduction to the String Divers. I love when science is involved and the creation and exploration of things man shouldn’t possibly either know of or meddle with because the results are to be expected. However by the same token sometimes forewarned is forearmed and we’ll see how the team deals with all this next issue. I will say that with all of our own scientific advancements it’s still nice to see a new area being focused on that could become a reality in say another decade or so making it still seem strange and scary in the here and now.