TITANIUM RAIN Volume One Collected Edition Hardcover
Retail Price: $19.95 U.S.
Page Count: 152 pages
Format: hardcover with dustjacket, 6.625” x 10.25”, full color
Writer: Josh Finney
Artists: Josh Finney and Kat Rocha
Cover: Josh Finney and Kat Rocha
Collects the first four chapters of the Titanium Rain series!
To be alive is to be at odds with the world. Man against nature. Man against man. The instinct to survive is what has made us who we are. In the year 2031 mankind’s survival instinct is put to the test when a civil war in China spirals into global conflict. Nations are destroyed. Millions are killed. And for many, like US Air Force pilot Alec Killian, survival will mean shedding some of his humanity in exchange for biotech and machine. In the spirit of books and films such as “Ghost in the Shell,” “Innocence” and “Blackhawk Down,” Titanium Rain follows one pilot’s journey through mankind’s worst, only to discover its best.
Mature Readers (contains Graphic Violence and Adult Content)
In a title lent to us by our friends at Archaia Publishing, I’m here to review a graphic novel called Titanium Rain; which is a war comic taking place in the near future. What did I think? You’ll have to see.
In the near future (20 years or so) the world has broken out in all-out war. China, the largest economy in the world has broken out in a civil war that dragged the rest of the nations into it. The various world powers have taken sides, either with the rebel Emperor, who despite only controlling a “mere” third of the enormous nation, holds most of the metropolitan centers like Shanghai and Beijing and Hong Kong. The United States, spurred by the emperor’s attack on Tokyo Bay, entered the conflict on the Communist China’s side, which holds most of the rural areas of Western China. Somehow, in this conflict, Tibet has declared its independence and remains neutral. But none of that is the main focus of the story. In Titanium Rain, the real draw is the lives of these genetically modified pilots who fly missions in China, endangering their lives for us.
To be fair, I’ll start with what I did like: the dialogue. Some of it was gloriously snarky and felt like the characters were real people who talked smack to one another over drinks or work. And having friends in the military, some of them actually talk this way, so it was extra appreciated to see realistic voices in a title about people in war.
Yeah, that’s about it.
There are some things for which I appreciate the effort, like the art. It’s photo-realistic and could be a gallery of gorgeous photos from a war. But it doesn’t work in a comic. It comes off quite static and unmoving, with goofy facial expressions. Think Alex Ross at his worst. That’s how this comes off.
What I did not appreciate about the art was how the main character was quite literally modeled after the writer. Throughout the entire book I’m thinking “who is this? I recognize him from somewhere…”
Turns out it was from the book jacket. This kind of practice makes the book seem incredibly self-indulgent and a work of conceit rather than a work of art. It was already incredibly difficult to engage in a story with which I had little connection, and then I was pulled out even further. Even the love interest is the artist’s face and body put in between the cover.
As I mentioned before, if it weren’t for that, I might have enjoyed it, but the story isn’t much of a grabber, as there isn’t much of one at all. You get a back story and you get a picture of what’s happening in the world AROUND the story, but save for one scene, it largely doesn’t matter. You have one character dumbing down world economics and the war into a game of poker, and a eulogy for a character that passes relatively soon in the book. There’s also quite a bit of flirtation between two characters based on the creators, and then some admittedly humorous moments with some funny dialogue.
Over all, I just cannot recommend a book like this. Even the last 50 pages or so (the book itself is 152 total) are all charts, graphs, and fake news stories that would make even Alan Moore or Jonathan Hickman drop into a fetal position onto the floor. After a while, I just gave up reading it, since I didn’t think a full third of the entire page count should explain what happened in the previous 100 pages.
Final Verdict: 3.5 – Pass
