Top Cow Productions 2017
Written by Zack Kaplan
Illustrated by Andrea Mutti
Lettered by Jordan Boyd
As Seattle faces a deadly alien epidemic, the Earth Security Agency has its human agents covertly tracking down the source of the outbreak, both within anti-Port human resistance groups and the Port of Earth itself. But the greatest threat comes from the Consortium’s continued challenges of humanity’s decisions, operations, and authority over our own planet’s security.
Month in and Month out I am constantly in awe of this series. The quality and level of work that we see here has been exceptional from the start and as the story progressed the work just gets better and better. Zack is one of my writers to watch he’s come onto the scene and he’s got such mad skills and seemingly unlimited talent at his command. The opening with Julia doing her interviews has been a highlight for me. It has that edge and tone to it where she tries to be professional and yet you can almost hear the sarcasm and disbelief in what’s being said. I will say this, she is not a woman whose bad side I want to be on.
Also to see so succinctly all the damage, death and destruction that having the Port is causing the human race is a great way to catch up on what’s come before or is currently happening. We also learn a lot from her guests and in this case Rogoro and how he views the human race speaks volumes about how we are seen by these alien species. There has always been an edge to the story where we think and believe that this is just a start for the Consortium to claim Earth as it’s own and wipe out humanity. Perhaps that is true perhaps not either way there is a lot going on here and the multiple layers in this story with different characters have really made this not just a must read but the best of the must read books on stands today.
Andrea is an artist I have been a fan of since I first saw his work. I thought he was amazing then and here with this linework and this strong steady hand that utilises the varying weights in that linework to create such amazing attention to detail is stupendous. The creativity and imagination and how these different species are brought to life is freakishly good. The way he structures these panels by showing us precisely what we need to see, sometimes you don’t realise how well he does this, so we get the maximum impact is stunning.
The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show us this masterful eye for storytelling. The way that backgrounds are utilised to enhance the moment as well as show this size and scope of the story is amazing. The colour work too, I mean this man is crazy talented and how he uses light sources to highlight shading, shadows and some colour gradation just damn. Then there are things that we see like that hub with the computer arrays and how we see the Governor on them to that green alien or the ice aliens each of these are so freakin exceptional to see.
This story is out of this world crazy good. The strength of the writing we see through it’s story & plot development, including all the layers, pacing and some absolutely stellar characterisation easily draw the reader in so they don’t want to leave. Add in these interiors and hot diggity Min! (Egyptian God) this is the kind of series you buy individual issues and then still get the trade as it really just that good but don’t just take my word for it, go pick up and see for yourself and see what happens.