Action Lab Entertainment 2016
Written by Dino Caruso
Illustrated by Chad Cicconi
Coloured by Crimzon Studio
Lettered by Adam Wollet
Lamont wanted to build a city on another planet and get away from Earth to start again with his own styled utopia. We’ve seen why and understand his desire to do so but that didn’t stop him from getting killed here. There were a few things I noticed when all this was coming together and that was there was no good screening process for those who wished to go. There’s a reason for saying like “you can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can’t take the trailer out of the girl..” wherever you go people are going to be the same.
Dino is doing some really nice characterisation here. I mean we see ambition, subterfuge, love and honesty and usually in some of the most unusual places. With each issue that comes out he continues reinforce what we’ve seen in these characters in bolder ways. It’s like a whirlpool of emotions that are on edge and fueling the baser instincts. I am very much enjoying the way these characters keep revealing more and more about who they are under the circumstances that Dino has placed them in.
Chad does a great job with the interiors here as well. We see the emotions grace the pages through facial expressions and body language which immediately tell us that state of their minds. The use of page layouts through angles, perspective and the backgrounds we see keep this a wonderfully Teenaged book. There really is a great sense of human behaviour alongside these wonderfully rendered aliens they are forced to live side by side with. These seemingly cute and friendly native species that harbour the same emotions that the humans do comes across incredibly well.
If people could just learn to get along with their neighbors and embrace ways of life that are different from theirs things would be so much easier but as we see here on both sides that this isn’t something that is going to happen. While there are good folks among both sides it really is those who have lower morals and scruples that seem to ruin it for everyone else. You’d think colonising a community on a distant planet would be the adventure of a lifetime. We see that it is just not the way we would hope to envision it.
This is a wonderfully thought out and executed series with many lessons to be learned. With strong characters, characterisation and a story whose pacing helps you stay involved and wanting to know what comes next this is one you shouldn’t pass up on.