Publisher: Titan Comics
Release Date: March 21, 2018
Price: $16.99
Creator(s): Jack Campbell (writer); Andre Siregar, Bambang Iraway, Sebastian Cheng (artists)
Format: 128 pgs., Full-Color, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-7858-5299-2
Age Rating: N/A
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
"Jack Campbell" is the pseudonym of a former naval officer who has written several military science fiction novels set in the same universe as this story. In fact, details from several of the novels weave together in this tale, which works quite well. There is even a detailed plot chart and timeline in the back of the book which lets newcomers know how this fits in.
While Campbell hasn’t been writing this in graphic form up to now, his writing style fits the format well, and the artists have done an excellent job of portraying key characters, especially the ones with visible damage from their time in combat. It can be tough to properly illustrate a major scar or prosthetic in a convincing way, but it’s done here.
A possible story confusion for longtime readers of the series is that this releases a character who has been imprisoned for several volumes. That changes a LOT of the story’s focus, but as shown in this volume, both the text version and any subsequent graphic version have a lot to work with now.
The basic story, matching Campbell’s other work, is that this is a future in which it is hard to trust anyone. What this story fails to do is to show why the "bad guy" Syndicate Worlds ever sustained their structure, a weird mixture of evil corporations and Stalinist brutality. Still, bad guys are essential to most military SF, so these will have to do.
What makes this story unusual is that it is military science fiction taking place just after a major war, when things ought to be peaceful. They aren’t, at least partly because of the nature of the bad guys, so forces from both sides have to team up for this story, leading to both lots of violence and lots of angst.
This is a good story for adults and older teens who are interested in military science fiction.
--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.
