DARK HORSE BOOKS
SCRIPT: Arvid Nelson
PENCILS: Andrea Mutti
INKS: Pierluigi Baldassini
COLORS: Michael Atiyeh
LETTERS: Michael Heisler
COVER: Glenn Fabry (alternate cover by Stephan Martiniere)
32pp, Color, $3.50
Dark Horse Comics is publishing a comic book based upon Rage, the upcoming first-person shooter game from developer, id Software, creators of Doom and Quake, and publisher, Bethesda Softworks. The three-issue comic book miniseries is written by Arvid Nelson (the creator of Rex Mundi) and drawn by Andrea Mutti, and the story, entitled “After the Impact,” is an original tale and an introduction to the world of Rage.
In the back story of Rage, Asteroid 99942 – codename: Apophis – strikes Earth on April 13, 2037. Five billion people die within 24 hours. A tiny fraction of the population survives the attack by living in burrowing cryo arks, but they emerge to find Earth a wasteland controlled by a global military dictatorship called the Authority.
In Rage #1, Dr. Elizabeth Cadence emerges from her life-sustaining ark and is immediately confronted by murderous marauders. She is rescued by Authority forces and taken to their home base, The Dead City. Cadence is also familiar with an Authority officer, Casey. As a scientist, Dr. Cadence helps the Authority, but discovers that what she has learned is not the truth.
Between the title page synopsis and this first issue, comic book readers will have a nice introduction to the world of Rage, and they will certainly have an entertaining read in this comic book.
The script by Arvid Nelson is clean and streamlined, and Nelson manages to introduce the personalities of and the conflict between the two characters that are the focus (at least at this point), Dr. Cadence and Casey. The only problem here is that this first issue seems like a prologue to the real action, which, in the context of a three-issue miniseries, suggests that there may not be a lot of story in the series. [Of course, I could be wrong.]
Artist Andrea Mutti’s graphic style is perfect for this science fiction tale. Mutti’s clean compositions make for good storytelling, and Mutti has a knack for drawing faces that convey personality traits and complex emotions. Cover artist Glenn Fabry may be the big name here, but Mutti’s interior art is the star.
B+
http://www.rage.com/
