Sci fi has always been an element embedded within the superhero genre but in comic books is rarely ever given a full, special treatment. Warren Ellis, writer extraordinare (not the gifted musician) and penciller Chris Sprouse set their sci fi tale nearly a 100 years from the present. The first issue of the 6 issue limited series is a spectacular hybrid of Arthur Clarke futuristic setup meets Asimov's space explorations. It is all mood and surroundings. Earth has advanced, technology has moved on, space travel is the norm. These things are carefully revealed - in silent montages, in stark images that reveal a new, more vibrant Earth.
Soon, we are introduced to Nathan Kane, a man travelling to the Moon, to take a connecting spacecraft heading to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Kane, we learn, is a UN weapons inspector and is heading to the world's first space research station in Jupiter. An attempt is made on his life in one of the mining stations on the moon, but Kane, a crafty intellect with a hatred for guns, is able to defend himself. This is a key scene - it works well to develop Kane as a beliveable protagonist but also explains some of the things that happen later on. The members of the research station on Europa reveal to Kane what they've come across - thousands of cryogenic sleeping chambers within the icy surface of the moon, that each house beings in deep sleep. These are the parts where the book really shines. We've all read some Asimov or Clarke, but rarely seen their creations in a visual medium like graphic novels, and Sprouse brings these life vividly, The book excels in gradually revealing the machinations of its plot and Ellis is a master of this form of intrigue.
Where the book falters is in being both rushed and a little half baked. Kane and the others find out that there is another space exploration craft from Earth in their vicinity. This larger ship is sponsored by a Computer corporation called Doors (jabs at Microsoft and windows...) who have evolved as a company and now assist governments in space exploration by testing weapons for them (they have the technology and this makes some sense). The employees at Doors never exist in their human form, but instead for the duration of their work contract, plug into drones that are connected to the central Intranet, which feeds them with updates and information about their task. All of these are excellent and interesting ideas, but none of them are fully explored. Ellis, if you've ever read his writing, is highly imaginative, but seems too scattered by the sheer number of titles he works on and here his thoughts feel like random strands to please the readers. Still, there is a lot of intrigue generated by just 6 issues, but you wish it had continued longer so the setups would have had more of an impact. The dialogue though is top notch - sample the following; it is intelligent, interesting and scary:
"This is too easy."
"You've been on this since last night. If it was easy, I would've been able to stop hearing your complaining by now. What's your problem?"
"Human language comes from twelve root sounds. Those sounds rely on both the structure of the larynx and atmospheric conditions."
"So?"
"So the voice track Anna found has those root sounds. And the computer's matching them to elements of the language characters in the text."
"So you're complaining that it's easy. What do you want?"
"We're accessing the words of an impossibly ancient, essentially alien race. It should be harder than this."
"Come on, John. Same larynx, same lung structure. Ten fingers, naturally leading to a base ten mathematics. We're alike. It's weird, sure -- but this is all weird. What's bugging you?"
"You want to know what really bothers me? You can tell a lot about a culture from its language."
"Go on."
"I mean, if we were aliens looking at Inuit text here, we'd see that they've got fifty different words for snow. What do we get from that?"
"It snows a hell of a lot where they come from. I get that."
"Get this: so far I've logged a hundred and sixty-three different words for murder."
Like I said, very well written, but perhaps a little weak in the scripting department. There has been talk about how Ocean might be a Hollywood movie soon, but Ellis vehemently denies this claiming that he and Sprouse own the rights and have not sold it to anyone. Still, if it happens, and provided the story is fleshed out a bit more, it would make for a truly unique adaptation. I haven't even described the part where Kane uses a gun specifically made for space (works without bullets) in a crazy sequence where he tilts the space carrier's artificial gravitation to his advantage against his adversaries. All in all, an interesting, short read.
Rating: 3.5/5
