Review: NUMBER 13 #1

NUMBER 13 #1
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

STORY: Robert Love and David Walker
PENCILS: Robert Love – @Robert33071
INKS: Dana Shukartsi
COLORS: Brennan Wagner
LETTERS: David Walker with Robert Love
COVER: Robert Love with Christian Colbert
PIN-UPS: Ibrahim Moustafa, Jeffrey Kimbler
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S.

Robert Love of Gettosake Entertainment has a new comic book. It is entitled Number 13, and Love co-writes the series with David Walker. The series is a dystopian science fiction tale set in a future world of mutants and those who hate and fear mutants. Into this world, a young bionic man, with no memory of his past, searches for answers and for his creator.

As Number 13 #1 opens, we learn that a plague, Monstrum Morbus (the monster plague), turned people into mutants, or into monsters, as their human brethren saw it. The human race became divided basically into the two groups: the mune (immune to the plague) and the fected (those infected with it). The violence between the two groups caused the end of the world, as we know it.

Sixty years after the end of the world, the fected are a race of mutants looking for safe haven. A small band of them find a young man who turns out to be a bionic amnesiac known as Number 13 (or Number Thirteen). Neither Number 13 nor his new friends know that they are about to become pawns in a great struggle.

In terms of style and graphics, Number 13 #1 bears a strong resemblance to the comic books Jack Kirby produced for DC Comics in the 1970s. In fact, Dana Shukartsi’s strong inks over Robert Love’s pencils create an art style that is something akin to John Byrne’s Kirby-influenced work, such as the excellent Byrne series, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World.

Of course, that means comic book art that pops off the page and a comic book that is a fun read. The first issue is raw in terms of storytelling, but this will get better. I think many readers will feel the way I do; by the time, I reached the last page, I immediately want to see the first page of the next issue.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux