
Titan Comics 2016
Written by Victor Gischler
Penciled by Steve Scott
Inked by Rodney Ramos
Coloured by Stefani Renee
Lettered by Rob Steen
On July 2nd, 1996, a massive spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin entered Earth’s orbit, deploying 36 City Destroyers to annihilate the world’s population. Over the next 48 hours, 108 cities were reduced to ashes, until a united, globally coordinated counterattack took out the alien’s mothership – halting their fourth wave of attacks and eliminating the extraterrestrial threat. Or so we thought... While humanity watched the skies in celebration, beneath the Atlantic Ocean, another catastrophic event now threatens to undermine the entire war effort. An alien vessel - unlike any seen before - has been discovered deep beneath the waves, prompting a topsecret investigation by the US military. Led by Captain Joshua Adams and Dr. Jessica Morgan, this team has established contact with a ballistic missile sub and are on their way to the alien ship’s position...
In all honesty i’m surprised this hasn’t been mined before but with the new movie it is a perfect time for a story like this. I mean it’s so well suited to the comic book medium what with aliens, the army and all that entails. I think what I really appreciated here is the fact that they didn’t go the obvious route and use the main characters from the first movie and instead decided to use characters that were more secondary in nature. This was great because it really fleshes out those periphery characters and makes their inclusion much more essential and a natural continuation of that original story.
The interiors are utterly fantastic too. Titan has this knack for finding these great artists and the fact that this book has a great look and feel to it is a testament to that. The characters have a great individuality to them and Captain Adams striking resemblance to the actor is wonderful to see. I’m captivated by their work here and the use of pages and panels keeping the flow of the story going is great. I like the sense of emotion the work gives off, and the subtle way that Adams fear of water is highlighted. It really helps in making this story so bigger than life.
Now I do very much like that the Submarine Captain, Meredith, is a woman. She’s no-nonsense and a really confident individual and it’s so refreshing to see. More so since there’s really no fanfare or anything regarding it, it just as it should be. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side that’s for sure but i’m extremely intrigued by her and that’s a huge plus.
In some aspects you know what’s going to happen, they go to the bottom of the Ocean and enter the alien ship and encounter aliens. That’s pretty much a given I mean how can it go any other way? However knowing what’s going to or should happen doesn’t mean much in the long run because it’s really the way the writer, in this case Victor, tells it. There’s logical progression of the story, wonderful characterization and some nice surprise elements along the way. This isn’t what you’d expect from the franchise and I like that and I can’t wait to see what happens next, especially after the way this issue ends!
Nice to see that the time is right to explore this scenario more fully.