Image Comics brings us The Warning, issue zero-zero-one.
From the writing mind and artistic hands of Edward Laroche, this title is about the military. A multinational combat brigade called Gladiator Two-Six has been deployed to intercept nasty aliens who have sent an enormous machine to a West Coast US city. What are these pesky aliens up to?
My own personal response to issue one of The Warning is that it’s a bit obtuse. Puzzling, even. It’s like watching a Foxtrot Echo doing the Tango. Laroche drops us into a scene of troop deployment that spans about 14 pages of the book, then backs us up in time about 3 months for another segment involving a coke-sniffing doctor. Then we go even further back, in a plot-related sequence. Then, back to present time. Oh, the vertigo! Ah, we are supposed to piece together this story, from the bits and crumbs that have scuttled across three points in time!
I have a personal dislike for being obliged to piece together a story on my own, so that’s my baggage, and I need to deal with it. So be it. You might enjoy the series, and I really think the concept has merit, but it takes a mighty helping of patience to wade through the military procedural dialogue (“We have visual at three-two-five kilometers”) and the disruptive time leaps.
Artwork is excellent: some unique visual viewpoints, and strongly dramatic lighting and panel compositions. Let’s hope for a glorious second issue!
Image, The Warning #1, $3.99 for 33 pages of content. Rated Mature
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