By Robin Jones
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Facundo Percio
Published by Avatar Press
In space, no one can hear your city sized spaceship meld into an alien one…
In the vein of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Garth Ennis and Facundo Percio bring us a Sci-fi classic in the making with Caliban.
In the future, mankind is traversing the stars, speeding across the known universe between time and space at warp speeds. We are mining the universe for its resources, sending them back via freight to an earth resembling a “tumour breathing through a smokestack.” The crew of the mining ship Caliban believe this to be just a regular mission, a mind numbingly boring sub-space trip. As with all things apparently mind numbing and boring, something extreme and horrifyingly unexpected happens. The Caliban melds with an Alien ship mid-warp, the two ships attempting to exist in the same space at the same time. Something lurks in the dark of the phased ships, something looking for prey.
Caliban is a beast of a different nature from Ennis. Whilst famous for particularly grissly scenes, highly charged dialogue and creatively stringing together swearwords, Caliban is a tense, moody, atmospheric story which is leading you into the horror to come. We are introduced to Nomi, our protagonist, an aspiring novelist, she is documenting her time on the Caliban by dictating her memoirs. This method of exposition works two fold. In a world building sense, it delivers horrific throwaway lines about the effects of living in space like ”stillborn things that go straight in the trash” and “suns too bright to look at” leaving the reader to imagine such things. The second way it works is to show the pure tedium of steering a huge spaceship through warp. What Ennis does is merely show the smallest glimpse of just what is out there, which is a much more frightening prospect as to what is waiting for the crew in the dark. San, our other main protagonist is a tough talking, sarcastic grease monkey and a nice parallel to Nomi’s introvert. The back and forths between her and Nomi really shows Ennis’ writing at it’s best, delivering sarcastic jibes, personality traits of the two and believable characters.
Percio’s art is beautiful. it’s obvious that he has the Caliban’s entire schematics planned out in his mind, and his art reflects this knowledge of the ship and it’s inner workings. There’s a futuristic enough element to the ship, but a realism often lacking in Sci-fi, the inclusion of grease on San when she finishes up fixing things, the mass of wires and panels that they have to work with and the ships unpolished finish really give the art a distinct realism. When Percio gets down to the horror, it leaps off the page at you, viscerally drawing you into the art work, a man half melded into a space ship is a distinct set piece, a terrifying end produced beautifully on the page. The actual merging of the two ships is a visual behemoth, a two page spread which genuinely made this reader gasp with shock, excitement and fright. Percio’s shadows loom ever further into the panels as the story continues and seems to be a pre-cursor to what lies in store for Nomi, San and the reader as Caliban continues.
In conclusion, Ennis and Percio deliver a tense, atmospheric and, crucially, believable Sci-fi tale. By toning down on the blood and shock value, the truly horrifying scenes are given an extra weight, especially if you compare this to Ennis’ Crossed. The added depth and restraint keep you on the edge of your wits, as the reader expects shocks and when delivered they truly shock. This is a fantastic first instalment to what should be a tense, fraught, Sci-fi horror series. A must for fans of Ennis, horror and Sci-fi!
I give this a blood curdling 10 out of 10!
In cyber space, everyone can hear you scream as you order the rest of Caliban right HERE
Posted on April 12th, 2014
Category: PULP FRICTION, REVIEWS
Tags: Avatar Press, Caliban #1 Review, Comic Blog, Comic Reviews, Facundo Percio, Garth Ennis, Horror comics, Robin Jones, Sci-Fi comics