Hannah’s world turns upside down when her father mysteriously vanishes while on assignment at a secret research station in Antarctica.
Cover by Willi RobertsWritten by Simon Birks
Illustrated by Willi Roberts
Colored by Willi Roberts
Lettered by Lyndon WhiteUpon learning that her father is missing and presumed dead while working at the Smith-Peterson Research Station in Antarctica, Hannah finds herself living on the street as her life crumbles around her. At her lowest moment a friend offers her a job, which eventually leads to a way of finding out what happened to her dad. Retrained as an engineer she lands a job at the same research facility her father was working at and ends up falling right into the middle of a conspiracy that could destroy everything she believes. Mayhem ensues as Hannah is thrust into this mystery in this tour de force sci-fi action thriller.
Hanna is used to her father being away for long periods of time. With years of practice she learned to never be mad at him about his work situation, until the day he didn’t come home. Writer Simon Birks (“Robyn”) starts of this issue by giving us all of the exposition we need in a tidy, but emotional narrative that gets every bit of the point across while having the reader become invested almost immediately. There is nothing terribly new about a scientist dad who goes missing in a sci-fi thriller, so for the script to have any strength to pull us in is quite the feat already. He then goes on to show us just how easy it is to slip from your comfortable, mundane life to living on the street begging for just enough money so you don’t starve. Hannah’s life is spinning the drain fast until a friendly face offers her a job at his coffee shop/eatery. She works a few shifts during the week and can also stay the night so she isn’t hunting for shelter, or more likely, stuck sleeping on the street. It is at this point that the story gets its gear shift thrown into warp drive. It moves too fast to capture both the emotional core of the story and flesh out the elements that will eventually lead to the greater mystery and action sequences.
For all of its strengths, “Antarctica” #1 does have a lot of ground to cover which gives it just a touch of feeling like a twenty pound story in a ten pound bag. Thankfully by the end of the issue things start to feel spaced out and slowly building up again. It is all clear and too the point, but an incredible amount of events and life altering, and ending, moments occur in just a few short pages. It’s here that Hanna ends up becoming qualified as a mechanical engineer, as she has always wanted to be a scientist like her dad, and we’re off to the Antarctic with new characters, dangers, and the full story begins.
For the most part the writing is quite strong and gives a sense of real world drama with just a bit of heightened reality to it. Unable to judge the style and tone Birks is going for at this time does give the book a bit of a mixed sense of self. Is it dry and realistic with a science fiction twist to it, or is it all sci-fi adventure from top to bottom and the mildly cheesy dialogue and nearly soap opera vibe wholly intentional? Leaning one way or the other will be what makes this series feel more cohesive, but at this moment, blending the two styles doesn’t fully mesh. So, for now, these parts of the whole are holding the book back just a bit rather than allowing it to know itself from page one and growing from that point.
The artwork and colors by Willi Roberts (“Blade in the Dark”) come together nicely. The illustrations are fluid, but detailed in a rigid manner that gives each character and location a solid framework so nothing feels as thought it could bleed right off the page. The work is really nice and mirrors the scripting in a way, by moving between tones. We get simple human drama that eventually ramps up to wild sci-fi. It all comes off as more successful in its tonal shifts with the artwork than just the writing alone. Roberts is an artist who is fairly new to comics and sequential art and his style is still coming into its own. There is confidence in the work which helps overcome any of the amateur moments where design or style doesn’t quite match up as it should based on a previous panel or page. The work is absolutely good, and even where it dips it fortunately never bottoms out due to ambition over talent. The writing and art do come together to form a good first issue that feels familiar without being derivative in a negative way. Some first issues call their shot and make you believe that the entire series will be as great or greater than its premiere. This one has some work to do to convince me, but I am eager to see if it can pull it off.
Final Verdict: 7.0, A decent start to this series that sets up bigger questions and a much bigger story to unfold.
