IDW Publishing 2015
Created & Written by Chris Ryall
Created & Illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
Coloured by Jay Fotos
In a future where the human population has grown unchecked for far too long Earth’s natural resources are in danger of drying up at an astonishing rate. Cities are built under the earth and into the skies and are overcrowded after space travel and colonization of the stars was deemed not a viable option global survival became the new order of the day. However we never should have stopped watching the stars.
We open at Lagos, Nigeria where a meteor comes crashing to earth causing destruction and death as it hits a public monotube and ends up in the surrounding wilderness. We see the military there tracking it and talking about it’s trajectory which seems to be odd and also how it managed to pass undetected by satellites orbiting the planet. As they sent units out to investigate the area of the crash we get a good look at the work by Gabriel and Jay. I’m really liking this clean detailed and expressive work they bring to the table. It’s really detailed and packed with visual imagery that is not only eye catching but gorgeously done.
When the real story opens we see a traveler arrive on Earth, Sol-3, as the person in armor is chasing the spore that arrived before they did. This spore that has arrived is an extinction level threat and that’s made clear rather quickly. We don’t focus on the visitor too long as we see the International Global Defense Army Team Avin and it’s crew in route to the crash site area. This is a nice time to get to know a little about them and the focus on Abigail “Loner” Aquino. She’s a telepath of some renown and is literally an outsider in the group and what her role in all this will be well since we’re getting a focus on her i’m sure she’ll be instrumental to what’s to come.
As the first attack from mutated local wildlife comes and their first encounter with the visitor happens things escalate quickly. Earth forces trying to establish what’s happening and Onyx the visitor trying to save them from what’s to come it’s a tense situation and Chris manages to create this encounter as the perfect play unfolding between two forces that don’t know each other nor do they know if they can trust the other.
Chris lays it all out here as Onyx tells them her tale, yes she seems to be female but again she’s an alien who has husbands and a wife so ya never know. She explains the threat that has come to Earth and what it’s capable of and when the assembled group is attacked by mutated wildlife it only confirms her story. Only not everything here is what it seems to be either as there’s a base in the vicinity that must remain secret.
This is the start of a great science fiction thriller meant to excite and scare at the same time. The setup has done it’s job wonderfully it lays out the dangers, the players and gives you multiple angles of things happening in the peripheral so that we are left immediately wanting more. Add to that the impressive work on the interiors and suddenly the sci-fi horror thriller has a new champion in Onyx.