Written by Dan Casey
Illustrated by Thomas NachlikCharles Witten is a brilliant scientist capable of inventing devices that will change out world. Unfortunately, most of the scientific community thinks he’s a crackpot. As does the government, until… a crack team of heistmen rob a bank in Switzerland using what appears to be Witten’s dimension hopping technology. Technology that Witten designed, but never completed…
A pilot, in the parlance of television, is the introductory episode of a series produced to convince a network to commit to ordering multiple episodes. The pilot must be self-contained enough to be pleasing to the viewer, but ask enough questions and set up enough potential storylines to pique the interest of the people who make the big decisions. They must introduce the characters, make us care about them, and leave us wanting more.
Top Cow’s Pilot Season is a great idea: give the audience a chance to read a slew of first issues and let them decide which get picked up as a series. Of course, the big difference between Top Cow’s Pilot Season and television’s pilot season is that relatively few people get to see television pilots, and those few get to order changes after committing to the series. For instance, the role of Kramer on Seinfeld was known as “Kessler” on the pilot episode (for a show that was then called The Seinfeld Chronicles). With these Top Cow books, the people making the decision whether or not to see more (us) don’t necessarily get to make the decisions that would take a winning book in a contest to a monthly book worth your (our) four dollars.
Which brings us to Theory of Everything. This comic is a tale of inter-dimensional espionage, theft, and murder, all stemming from one man, Charles Witten, and his groundbreaking research on parallel dimensions. There is also a shady government organization, a dead wife, the grizzled military strong man, and various other untapped tropes sure to be explored if this is picked up for series. But should it be picked up? Find out after the cut.
Boy, do I wish there was a good comic in here somewhere. It sees like Dan Casey knew I was going to be reading this, and crafted a comic right up my alley:
Inter-dimensional travel? That has this old school Sliders fan written all over it.
Shady government agency? Do you guys know how many episodes of Fringe I have on my DVR?
Dead wife? Can you even imagine how many dead wives I have? YOU CAN’T, BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE ANY! But imagine if I did, right?
Joking aside, this is a really, really poorly executed take on a pretty good idea. Witten, the main character, isn’t very likable or relatable, and he is drawn so similarly to the dimension-hopping villain that I needed to go back a few pages and make sure I was following the action as I was supposed to.
Part of the problem is the art; every character appears pained at all times, and no one has a particularly unique look to them. Artist Thomas Nachlik is clearly bemoaning the end of Movember here, with many of the male characters sporting truly awful looking half beards and five o’clock shadow. These small details can many times go unnoticed, but here they are so pronounced that they can’t help but be distracting.
Also distracting is the level of cliché present in the government-speak. Every character is exactly the stereotype you hope they aren’t — it is, again, distracting, how little this story differs from a hundred others. It is part The Matrix, part Sliders, part Fringe, part heist movie, but the worst parts of all of those things. The result is a cheesy, not at all engaging, hugely disappointing comic book.
I’m sure you can tell this isn’t getting my vote.
Final Verdict: 3.4 – Pass
