Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Drifter #1
Image Comics
Brandon & Klein
A man falls from the sky in a crashing rocket ship and lands on an unknown planet. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Sort of like Planet of the Apes or how about Image's series, "Plantoid" from a few years ago? Both have similar starting points along with countless other stories have this familiar opening. However, this book manages to tell an intriguing enough story to bring me back for more. This issue isn't perfect but it is a good enough start.
The comic book has the pieces to make a great book. The man crashes and finds some natives and seems to kill one and then get mortally wounded by what appears to be a human. He later wakes up to a woman that is a doctor and the town's lawman. Questions arise from both but before anything can really get sorted out the man is on the run, chasing the person he believes wounded him. The story is a fast one and leaves off with a familiar, but cool, cliffhanger.
The comic shines because of the characterizations. The book really only has two characters in it that see any significant panel time and they are characters that the reader can get to know and understand their motives fairly easily. These are characters worth following in a comic book.
The downsides are limited but glaring. The ease at which the wounded man picks up and runs around is very odd. The method that his shadow seems to be able to find him in the vast wasteland is also an unexplained mystery. However, the biggest piece to this that I wasn't a fan of was how the town and surroundings looked and seemed so much like Mos Eisley from Star Wars. I mean, the comic even has a cantina scene. This was too much for me. Perhaps readers won't care or pick up on it but from the first picture of the town until the last I just kept thinking this is just like Star Wars.
The artwork is outstanding. As much as I complained about the Star Wars similarities, this comic book looks way better than the live set in Star Wars. The comic book tells a fantastic visual story from the ship crashing right through the final image at the back of the book. The artwork stands on its own merits in this comic book and is worth the price of admission.
Drifter is a good start to a series. What the book does from here is anyone's guess but the first issue at least establishes a good core cast and a decent mystery. The book is backed up by stellar artwork and has few downsides to the comic book. This is a good book to check out if you are looking for something different on the racks these days.
3.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
