Resident Alien Your Ride's Here issue 1 featured Reviews 

“Resident Alien: Your Ride’s Here” #1

By | November 12th, 2020
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As we prepare for a new Resident Alien TV series in January, a new comic miniseries begins as well. “Resident Alien: Your Ride’s Here”, sees Harry return to Patience – only to leave, possibly, for the last time. But, as the creative team reunites for one last adventure with the cast, with the artwork as solid as ever, is this the most compelling story to bow out on?

Cover by Steve Parkhouse
Written by Peter Hogan
Illustrated and colored, and lettered by Steve Parkhouse

Harry’s learned a lot about himself and the possibility that other aliens have been stranded on Earth, too. He needs to figure out what to do with Honey, the only resident in Patience, USA, who sees him in his true alien form, as well as deal with his feelings toward Asta, his best friend. Harry’s been stranded in a small town pretending to be a human doctor for so long, loneliness is bound to creep in.

“Your Ride’s Here #1” is an underwhelming beginning to Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse’s latest story arc of “Resident Alien”. There isn’t much story being offered up in this issue. The comic opens on a mildly interesting scene of a delivery man being shot in the leg by a BB gun and the local cops setting off to find the shooter, who they believe to be a kid – it’s fine but not riveting, as the stakes are quite low, and doesn’t seem to tie into anything else happening in the comic. Later on, Asta has a dream where her shaman dad appears to warn her of incoming threats to Harry – and that’s it. Not exactly edge-of-your-seat reading.

Dark Horse’s choice to number the story arcs rather than the series overall is a good idea, not least as it encourages new readers to jump on, but because the titles (“Hellboy,” etc.) are usually easy to pick up and start reading without knowing too much about what went before. So it goes with “Resident Alien” usually – except this first issue is a bit too overly referential to previous books. The bulk of it is Harry catching up with the townspeople: who’s getting married, how his replacement fared at the clinic, and so on. For anyone new reading this, I imagine the effect is like watching a sitcom for the first time but starting five seasons in!

Hogan’s high quality dialogue makes up for the lack of incidence though. The laconic police chief’s words were amusing – after he’s accused of being clueless: “Oh, I’ve got a clue or two all right…just haven’t caught anybody yet.” Harry’s easy back-and-forths with everyone convincingly shows the strong relationships he’s established in the town and his comment that New York is “the citiest city” he’s ever seen is a good line. That said, the skill of writing believable conversation is offset a bit by the lack of interesting topics: Asta and her troubled feelings towards Harry, Harry looking to hire Ethan full-time at the clinic, and so on, is banal material.

Steve Parkhouse’s art is excellent throughout. The cover is simple but elegant, using empty space effectively and including the key elements to the issue without overcrowding it, while the eye-catching green is beautifully complemented by the yellow. Parkhouse draws facial expressions perfectly – if you can look at a page without reading a word and yet still understand the gist of what’s going on, you’re looking at a master cartoonist, which is what you get with this artist.

The dream sequence stands out as particularly stunning, not least for the brilliant Native American iconography, but the use of beguiling hues of purple and the rapidly-varying light levels. The character design of the villain, Mr Jones, is unremarkable – he’s just an ordinary guy – but that could be intentional; most serial killers look ordinary (and Jones does look a bit like American cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer).

Parkhouse also frames scenes really well. Like when we first see Jones in the background as Harry greets a pair of recovering alcoholics he knows – he’s careful to show that Jones is never seen by Harry even though they’re both in the same panels; Harry’s back is always to Jones though he’s clearly visible to the reader.

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Like the cover, Parkhouse doesn’t crowd the pages with unnecessary detail, letting them breathe at important points. The dream sequence has the lovely shot of the lights reveal followed by a close-up of Asta and then her dad with empty white space behind to bring the focus to him. And I love the design of both Asta and her dad’s outfits in this sequence – her dad’s owl mask and green medallion are particularly striking.

As with many long-standing creative teams (ie. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips), you can see the expertise of Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse come together and shine effortlessly in “Resident Alien” and “Your Ride’s Here #1” is no different to their other books in that regard. But, despite the technical proficiency, Hogan’s script isn’t terribly compelling. He’s introduced the villain of the story and hinted at the premise but I would’ve liked to have seen more development of both rather than an excessive amount of soap opera-esque nattering that fills up most of this issue.

Final Verdict: 6.5 “Resident Alien: Your Ride’s Here #1” is a decent beginning to a new story arc but the general lack of substance here won’t impress many readers.


Noel Thorne

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