I’d seen news of Image’s upcoming Outpost Zero series, but I hadn’t read the descriptions (I’m WAY behind on my previews and promos) so I glanced at the first few pages of the review copy out of curiosity. Next thing I knew I’d finished the issue. And now I want more. See below for the review of Outpost Zero #1.
Right off the bat the artwork hooked me in. (The preview pages don’t do it justice.) It’s very clean, almost cartoony in places (in a good way) with thick lines and an almost painted look to the colors. I’m a sucker for artists who can handle a wide range of expressions on faces, and Alexandre Tefenkgi does a great job without getting too exaggerated. I really like how he draws eyes in particular. There’s an image early on of the main character Alea as she frets over a problem, and it’s simple and uncomplicated and surprisingly lovely.
As for the story, this issue drops us into the middle of the story (which is how I like it: I can pick up my exposition in dialog, I don’t need the first issue to spell out everything) and what we find out is that the domed city our characters live in is left over from a Genship (slow-moving spaceships that take generations to get where they’re going.) It wasn’t supposed to end up on a world as icy and inhospitable as the one they’re on, but they’ve made the best of it.
We meet our young main characters (including practical Steven, impulsive Alea, sweet but slightly vapid Lyss, reclusive Sam, and token jerk Mitchell) and get immersed into a very fun sci-fi setting: artificial gravity, holograms, fake sunrises inside the dome and ice-planet hazards of the outside world that everyone just calls “The Frost.”
But the story turns into a mystery pretty quickly, and we’re given a lot of little questions, and we’ll have to wait till next issue for (some of?) the answers:
Lyss says her Singularity is coming up in 20 days. That doesn’t…sound like a birthday, I don’t think?
Also Lyss seems pretty content with the result of her aptitude test. Maybe too content?
Their genship crash landed, but there’s some discussion about other genships that made it to their planned destination. Do they know that for sure? There’s a lot of talk about getting the radio going, and I’m a suspicious person: what if the radio’s broken on purpose?
At one point the dome goes into crisis mode, because a “cell.” is approaching. That seems to be a storm cell, they do spend a lot of time batting down the hatches. But there’s something about what Discovery Team isn’t saying, something about what they found out there. I think next issue we’re going to see a lot more than a storm.
And what the heck is going on with Sam? What’s the recording he’s listening to, what’s he working on in his room, and why did he say “Everyone looked at me, and they could…they could all SEE me.” Because Steven was just as perplexed as I was at that line.
After a big cliffhanger of an ending I’m definitely in for the rest of the series, but honestly, the art had convinced me long before the ending.
Outpost Zero #1 is available from Image Comics on July 11, 2018.