Rating: 3.5/5 – A different twist on surviving after the Rapture.
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall.
There have been a number of comic stories told about life after the Rapture occurs (a concept in Christian mythology where good people are taken by the Lord into Heaven and those who don’t quite make the cut are left behind on Earth). The Nobodies puts a different twist on this concept. No ‘Hell on Earth’ (which was best done in Rick Remender’s Strange Girl), no overtly religious overtones. The story is set 20 years after the Rapture and while the souls of the righteous theoretically ascended to Heaven, their physical bodies were left on Earth devoid of all higher cognition, emotion, etc. There is no ‘spark’ that makes them human any more, they are the nobodies of the title. You can download a PDF for a cool $1 from the Ascendant Comics web-site:
http://www.ascendantcomics.com/store/p6/The_Nobodies_Issue_%231_Pdf.html
Writer John Vinson starts us off with a decent grounding in the mythology of his world with a full page letter from the current President of the United States (or POTUS). This explains the Rapture and in a twist on POT-US explains how marijuana (which he oversees cultivation of) has become a decent force for bringing the world together in this post-apocalyptic world as a commonly accepted form of barter currency. We move from this directly into our introduction to Iggy, our main protagonist. He wakes up in a warehouse with no memory of the past 20 years and needs to make his way in the world. As he is introduced to other characters and the status quo of the world over the course of the issue we’re brought up to speed right along with him. Ger Curti’s black & white art is stylized and less grim than we’ve seen in many other post-apocalyptic series. It reminds me a bit of Joe Staton, or in a more current example, the art of Robert Love & Dana Shukartski on Image’s Alpha Girl. Curti is a bit heavy on the blacks in quite a few places and his figures seem a stiff in places, but the art does it’s job overall.
There are shadowy factions with interests all over the place, maybe a few too many concepts thrown at the reader over the course of this issue, but generally preferable to them being slowly dribbled out over 6 to 12 issues. I think Vinson made a good choice in getting all the ideas out there and hoping he can intrigue readers with some of the notions he’s come up with. It’s got me interested in seeing more. Now it will be a matter of seeing how the creative team can develop and explore these ideas as they build the story and further flesh out the world they’ve introduced.
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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