Dark Horse Comics 2014
Written by Peter Hogan
Illustrated by Steve Parkhouse
This special #0 issue collects Resident Alien: The Sam Hain Mystery chapters 1 to 3, originally serialized in Dark Horse Presents Volume 3, #1 through #3, published in 2014.
After surviving a crash landing that destroyed his spaceship, a stranded alien hopes to live quietly undercover in Patience, USA, masquerading as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle—a semi retired doctor—until his home world can find him. He has some alien powers of empathy and the ability to mask his odd appearance from most people, which comes in handy after the local mayor and police chief both ask for Harry’s help. Harry replaces the town’s murdered doctor and also gets involved in the case, sparking a deep interest in forensics but leading him down some dangerous paths…
This Character and series continues to just grow, evolve and be one of the most interesting, unique and fun properties to hit shelves. I love that we get the chapters from Dark Horse Presents here to start off this latest story and it really is more fun to read in a full issue than in serialized shorter form that DHP offers of course on the flip side while the guys are working on a new story we still get snippets to keep us happy.
When Harry crash landed on Earth he used his gifts to coax money from an ATM machine that got him to Patience. Here we see him go to Las Vegas where he plans to as anonymously as possible win a large sum of money. Not only is this incredibly well done by Steve visually but Peter’s characterization is superb. That look we get into his mind as he sees and feels all these people’s thoughts, hopes and dreams is interesting.
Of course we’ve seen that the FBI or a similar organization that knows of Harry’s existence and call him Icarus keep track of suspected movements he makes and the bank that he got that money from has received the amount taken back. This makes him a harder man to track and is seen slightly different in the eyes of the agent in charge of finding him. Though something tells me he isn’t as keen on finding him as he once was but we’ll see how that plays out. His young assistant however isn’t ready to give up so easily.
Now Harry has decided to buy a house and is moving closer to town where he seems to be spending more and more time working as the towns Doctor. During the move Harry reminisces of his home and the mission that brought him to Earth in the first place. Their depiction of our planet and society, considered a level-three civilization and our fascination with war, death and of course violence. As it turns out a probe they were using to monitor the Earth crash landed on the planet and it’s Harry’s job to go and destroy it so that we cannot recover it and learn of it’s advanced technology.
I also have to say that Asta’s father is one of those rare characters that is more intuitive than most and maybe that’s due to being a Native American who are more in tune with nature the spirit world and things that aren’t easily explained. What we see him do here in concert with what we see from the young agent is remarkable and Asta’s taken completely aback and it’s wonderful stuff to see.
Everything about this series is just so well done with the characterization of the characters the town they live in and that children see him for who he is and that he’s made himself a valued member of this town. Peter just really manages to capture lightning in a bottle here and Steve’s illustrations are just wonderfully detailed and full of life.
This is one of the best series of mini-series you’ll find available today.