If you want to keep my interest in any sort of science fiction or fantasy comic (as I am aged and jaded), it helps to have one heck of a premise to start with. This one certainly has that covered, as the central conceit is that there’s a finite resource that allows faster than light space travel, that resource is about to run out, and everybody has to figure out where they want to be when that happens. Some people have the resources to make that choice for themselves, some don’t and are having that choice made for them. We’re following a small crew of scavengers who are trying to find scraps of this material in shipwrecks while still managing to get to where they’d like to end up when it all runs out. Naturally, there are other scavenging crews with the same idea, and things tend to get a bit tense at times (as that sample image may indicate). Still, an interesting concept isn’t going to take you very far if there’s no character work, but Owen has that covered too. In the space of about a dozen pages we get a solid idea of the two human characters and the octopus (ish) alien in the crew, and it’s hard not to get instantly invested in their struggle. He also does an excellent job of world-building, although I guess universe-building may be more accurate, along with the changing attitudes of the people doing business with each other. There’s a glimmer of hope to the whole thing as well, as there might be another option for travel. All they have to do is convince one of the richest people in the galaxy that it’s best to share it for little to no profit of his own. If you’re in America at the moment, you can probably already guess how that’s likely to go. This read like a self-contained graphic novel for most of it, but by the time all is said and done (without spoilers), it would be a shame if this is the end of the story. This is the first book I’ve read of Owen’s, but after this one I’m hoping to go back and see what else he’s come up with. That man can tell a hell of a story. $20ish (UK prices, don’t ask me to convert such things)
Posted by Kevin 
