Aspen Comics 2018
Written by Frank Mastromauro
Pencilled by Marco Lorenzana
Inked by Mark Roslan
Coloured by Justice
Lettered by Taylor Esposito
A new world of flight prepares to take the Aspen Universe by storm! In the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, Spain, a covert scientist discovers that possessing valuable data that could change the world comes with a dangerous price. However, it may be far too late for him to escape before the powers that be come to collect! Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a loving suburban family makes a similar discovery, that the world is indeed much smaller than it seems, and no one is safe! Don’t miss the thrilling opening chapter to Aspen’s newest action-adventure series.
This was a great introduction to the series. It doesn’t give us much and I'm completely fine with that as I don’t want to be spoiled what I want is something that is going to get me excited to read the series that follows. I mean the opening here bloody brilliant and with so few words but a lot of intrigue I want to know what is so important and why this man was so paranoid that he did what he did.
With the introduction of a few folks following our mystery man raise more than my eyebrow here. First impression is always important now and what I see before me is something akin to a secret police style force, ya know that kind that are paid handsomely to protect someone or some organisations interests. Interesting, intriguing, dangerous and in my humble opinion pretty much those that keep the villains safe. These guys don’t even honour the sanctity of the church in pursuit of this man so yeah I want to know more including why the team leader is different.
Speaking of that Marco does an amazing job laying down the pencils while Mark and Justice finish them off beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts here is sensational and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off a very good eye for storytelling. The colours are pretty damn amazing here as well, the way they can make items pop is exceptionally well done not to mention the way they bring the night sky to life. The way backgrounds are utilised is nice to see, though please try to use them in all panels because I like the way that they expand the scene, the moment and the world they live in.
This does what it really needs to do. Introduce us the that which is going to become the main character although she doesn’t know that and is going to be thrust into a world she isn’t prepared for all thanks to her old man. I want to see how she finds out, I want to see what her old man does and claims to do for a living. It already has this feel to it of shows we’d find on Freeform like Stitchers or Shadow Hunters, which makes it feel now.
So a nice introduction at 20 pages of story to give the reader a glimpse of what is and what is to come. There is some interesting characterisation going on as well which makes me wonder how the characters are going to feel, react and cope with what’s coming. All in all this is precisely what I wanted this to be and it’s a shame more books don’t do something like it. No spoilers here folks just a something to wet the appetite so your asking questions before anything’s really been done.