Review: Dark Matter #1

When it comes to Sci-Fi, I personally enjoy a bit of humormixed into the story. No matter how serious the subject matter is you need humorin order to ground the book in some sort of reality for the reader. The easiestway to do that is with humor. Sci-Fi is full of ideas that appear impossible atthe time, so if there isn’t something a reader/viewer can attach to then it’sless human and harder to connect to and enjoy. In other words, humor makes it so you can wrap your head around a talking robot. Dark Matter was not only interesting and a very cool story, but itmade me laugh… a lot!

The opening sequence takes us into a space ship that’s blowna part of its exterior haul and affected the life support. This awakens thegroup of people locked in sleep chambers and one man in particular rushes tothe bridge to restore the life support. He makes it there but is unsure as towhat needs to be done. He’s then kicked in the head and forced out of the wayby a woman who then restores the life support. Before the two can rest easy a third man comes in and points his dual pistols at them. He asks them whothey are and both give the same answer, “I don’t know.” Fortunately for them…neither does he.

This story cracked me up. I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to belaughing at the dialog as much as I did, but it was just too humorous not to. Theoverall story and writing was spot on. There is just the right amount ofmystery/reveals and the characters are all interesting. It’s clear that eachcharacter has a certain skill set be it firearms, hand to hand combat orcomputers. It makes them an interesting group to be thrown together with nomemories. The writing team of Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie have created aninteresting Sci-Fi world and dumped a mystery smack dab in the middle.

With a Sci-Fi comic the art work is as important as thestory. Its why a lot of these movie and TV Sci-Fi shows that are adapted intocomics end up so poor. Dark Matter doesnot suffer from this problem. Artist Garry Brown has a great style for thebook. He uses an interesting technic in which backgrounds and lower areas ofthe panel are left without much detail or completely blank altogether. Sure youget a few floating people, but something about it really works. As for thebackgrounds, the lack of detail works to keep the frame from being a darkenedmessed. Brown’s characters are very detailed and if both foreground andbackground were detailed the same amount neither would stand out.

If you like Sci-Fi, but like me avoid Sci-Fi comics like the plaguethen don’t avoid this book. This is probably one of the most interesting Sci-Fipremises to hit comics in years and I can’t wait to see how it concludes in thefourth issue. Even if you’re not a Sci-Fi fan I would still recommend this booksince it’s so well put together.

Score: 5/5

Writers: Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie

Artist: Garry Brown

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Price: $3.50

Release Date: 1/11/2012

Comments

[Carl]

I agree. For me, a rating of 4/5 would have been more spot on. The mystery is what makes this book compelling, but I don't know if I could be a chronic reader when the mystery dissolves.
Nevertheless, this was an outstanding first outing.