By: Brian Wood (writer), Kristian Donaldson (art), Dave Stewart (colors) & Jared K. Fletcher (letters)
The Story: In a post-ecological catastrophe world, a ship of Greenpeace-types search for the sister ship.
The Review:
1. A different type of apocalypse. – Environmental catastrophes aren’t new to fiction, but it seems like most apocalypse stories these days deal with zombies, nuclear war, super-plagues, etc. The world of The Massive isn’t ruined…..yet. But, it is definitely showing a global environment at the tipping point, as it was recently postulate. Earth might be NOW. Brian Wood is very timely with his stories. His DMZ featured military contractors run amok and a corrupt American government that distrusts its own citizens before such concepts had really injected themselves into the public consciousness. Let’s hope his crystal ball is a little off with The Massive, huh? It’s just nice to see a post-apocalyptic world that is different.
2. Tight cast. – Wood stays away from one of the big pitfalls of monthly comics and keeps his cast tight. Although there are numerous people in the story, only 3 matter: leader and ship’s captain Callum Israel, his right hand man Mag Nagendra and his right-hand woman Mary. That’s it. When you think of series like The Walking Dead where an excellent character like Michonne goes 6-7 months without any meaningful dialog, you can see what it is appreciated to keep it simple. Surely more characters will be added in the future, but for now it’ll be nice to just get to know these three folks.
3. The “story” is a little uninspiring so far. – “Disappointing” is the word that comes to mind. This is the type of first issue that Wood can get away with because he has a track record. Even though this issue was a little frustrating, I’m still 95% confident that this will be a series I’ll love before long. If an unknown creator had given me this issue, I probably wouldn’t be back for issue #2. While the setting and characters are interesting, there was no hook in this first issue beyond the fact that they’re looking for their missing sister ship, The Massive. And, they get into a fight with pirates. I guess looking for your friends on the sister ship is noble, but it isn’t much of a fictional hook. I mean, there isn’t even a subplot where the child or lover of one of the main characters is stranded on The Massive. This is where trust in the writer comes in. Surely Wood has something more interesting in store than a mere search and rescue comic and I can’t wait to see what it is.
4. Pretty good art. -The art has its moments. Donaldson does a wonderful job on the protagonists’ ship, the Kapital. It just looks BIG on the page as Donaldson has mastered the knack of giving something drawn on a piece of paper a sense of mass. He also does a generally good job on the storytelling. I got a little lost during a fast-paced boat-fight scene, but that’s not a huge flaw. In fact, Donaldson was good enough that the little flaws in the art leapt out at me more than they probably should. The faces he draws on the female character (Mary) are great and expressive, but the men are all kinda wooden. It isn’t a huge concern as the talent looks to be there. I just assume that Donaldson doodled a lot more attractive women as a young man than he doodled men. Can’t fault a guy for that, huh? And I bet the guys look better in a few issues as he warms up to the characters.
Conclusion: A frustrating first issue. We have a neat setting and some interesting characters, but I need a better sense of what the characters are doing before I can get really excited. Still, given Brian Wood’s track record, I’m not too concerned about the series.
Grade: B-
-Dean Stell
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Conclusion