Still on the Shelf #77 - The Symbiotes
Craig Reade

While at Comicon this year, I happened by Drive Comics’ booth, where they were debuting their new title, The Symbiotes. Some of you might have caughtAndrea Speed’s advance review of the title, and my later review after the convention. Well, the second issue is about to hit the shelves, so I thought it an ideal time to take some time and talk about it again.

Sci-Fi is a tough genre to do in comics, and good sci-fi books are very rare. The late CrossGen had a few, most notably Negation, which was one of their top selling titles. In general, however, sci-fi books tend to only be released as minis, and very few can sustain an ongoing run in this market for very long.

The Symbiotes is solicited as a mini, but as it is from a new publisher, you might expect that. And much like Negation, it is a sci-fi action story that revolves around a group of super powered individuals who are “fighting for their existence.”

And, as if sci-fi wasn’t a unique enough angle, this comic is produced entirely in CGI. Though CGI has been around for quite some time, it is still extremely new in the comic medium, and Drive is one of the first to make a comic exclusively in that style. It is an impressive outing, and aside from a few production problems in the first issue (I’ll talk about that later), the art on this series has been simply breathtaking.

Cast of Characters

Khalid Ketsuzoku is a police officer in the city of Lemaneh on a planet in the Human Empire. He is good at his job and though he may have the skills to follow his dream, to become one of the elite Raiders, his heritage stands in his way. The Human Empire is made up of those that prize the human species above all others, and the only kind of people that are below aliens in their eyes are those who are mixed breeds. Khalid, much to his dismay, is a product of mixed breeding (his great, great grandfather was Palgan), and could never hope to become a Raider with a racial background like that.

Of course, in such a wide empire of oppressed aliens, it is only natural that there would be those to oppose that oppression. The Symbiotes are one such group. It is comprised of a large number of alien individuals, each of which possess some kind of superhuman ability (my guess is that this is tied to being a “half-breed,” but there is no proof of this yet). The Symbiotes are struggling against the Human Empire, and hope to one day overthrow it with the help of the one called Abhi-es-Jhiv, or the Hand of the Infinite. Few details about the individual members have been revealed (TheSymbiotes.com has a nice character section that can provide a few more details, however), but the team (and potential team members) is quite large.

Vah’hrats are strange creatures that are unusually strong and resilient. These fierce creatures are, for some reason, found on every single planet that the humans have chosen to colonize, even though they possess no technology for traveling between worlds. They are also only hostile towards humans – ignoring those from other species even in the midst of battle. Where they come from, and why they attack humans is a complete mystery.

Thoughts

I was a bit skeptical about this title, at first. CGI art in comics is a very new thing, after all, and totally untested. Add to the fact that it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, technically, and the potential for some hack who happened to have the right software passing himself off as a real artist was quite high.

But I have to say that George Lippert impressed me in the end. The art is rich, vibrant, and colorful, and he has managed to convey three dimensional and realistic scenes on the pages. The characters did, at times, have the usual problem of looking slightly unnatural in their poses, which I have found to be a common problem in even the most well done CGI movies. As such, I am not going to complain really about that.

When I reviewed the first issue of this series, I did note that the art was extremely dark As it turns out, this was due to a printing error, and will hopefully be corrected for this second issue. Even so, the art was stunning, you just had to read it under a bright, direct light to really see what was going on. It did take away from the enjoyment of the first title somewhat, but the overall quality was good enough to overcome even that pretty drastic problem.

It is easy to focus on the art here, as it is really the thing that sets this title apart from other comics on the shelf. But as most of you know, I am a story guy, and story is the most important aspect of a comic, for me. The Symbiotes is a pretty big story, with a lot of different characters taking different paths to what I think will be a pretty explosive conclusion. Some of the story aspects are a bit tried – there is the quasi-Nazi Human Empire (with a modified swastika emblem) which subjugates an unwilling populace, and a group of heroic rebels who fight against that repression based on some sort of prophecy. Some people might have a problem with overly familiar themes, but if the resulting story is exciting, and the characters are interesting, then personally, I don’t mind. And The Symbiotes does accomplish that.

The Symbiotes is, thus far, a fairly effective blending of the sci-fi and superhero genres. The Symbiotes act like a standard superhero team, each using their powers in concert to achieve certain goals in their missions against the Human Empire. Khalid’s story is progressing a bit more slowly than the others – it seems as if he will have a chance to join the Symbiotes at some point (he may even be this “Hand of the Infinite” they are seeking), as he is already, after 2 issues, butting heads with his human “allies,” but where his allegiance lies is impossible to predict yet.

A lot gets thrown your way in the first issue – there is a ton going on in several different storylines, but things do start to settle down in the second issue. Even so, the stories don’t seem that rushed, and with careful reading, you don’t get lost in the “clutter.” The characters are all very unique – both Vaughn and Lippert effectively avoid a common problem in comics – characters that are too similar to distinguish. Perhaps it is the advantage of sci-fi, being that you can make aliens as different as you please, but after two issues, I haven’t once found myself mistaking one character for another. And with the sheer number of characters introduced in these first issues, that is indeed a feat.

Bottom Line

If you like Sci-Fi books, or even if you just miss titles like Negation, I strongly recommend that you give The Symbiotes a shot. Even if you just pick up a single issue to check out what is among the most stunning comic book art you will see all year, this is a title you have to buy at least once. And don’t worry – though the CGI art makes this title unique, the creative team did not succumb to relying only on the art. It has the story to back it up, and for that I am thankful.

Issue 1 is available now in stores, and the second issue is set to be released this Wednesday, October 20th. For more info on The Symbiotes, you can check out the Drive Comics website, or The Symbiotes site. Both are good resources if you want a little insight as to how the comic is made, info on some of the characters, and samples of some of the art in the title. Check them out before this Wednesday, so you know what you are looking for!

Credit Where Credit is Due
The Symbiotes is
Written by Davis R. Vaughn,
Illustrated by George Lippert, with
Additional Modeling and Effects by Kelly Nelson,
Additional Modeling and Compositing by Matt Metzker,
“Invisible Sound Effects” by Bill Reiter, and
Published by Drive Comics.