Rom Dire Wraiths #2: So Far Away

This comic has pulled off a genre that usually doesn’t really play well in comics, the action/horror genre. Horror might be too strong of a word, maybe I’m thinking of “thriller”. Think Jurassic Park or one of the more recent Planet of the Apes movies. An action movie, but once in a while you get scared so bad you jump. That’s hard to pull off in comics, but author Chris Ryall pulls it off really well. Also, I just remembered how much I hate it when people compare things to other things. This book stands on its OWN as a really cool thriller set in space, focusing on a group of astronauts being terrorized by the Dire Wraiths, a race of shapeshifting aliens that are fleeing to Earth in hopes of taking over the planet and staging a war against the Space Knights of Galador, who’re hot on their heels. Ryall has put together a group of really interesting astronauts that stand between the Wraiths and their ship, which will carry them back to Earth, but he’s also created a really cool group of secret “space cops” from Earth that is set on the moon to wipe out any kind of invading threat. I don’t want to go into too much more detail, in case I accidentally give too much of the story away. I will say that Ryall manages to put out a comic with actual suspense, and one that will definitely get an emotional reaction out of you.

Artists Luca & Andrea Pizzari are the perfect art team for this book. There’s so much in this book. 1960’s technology, 1960s sci-fi technology, alien worlds, aliens, and that’s just the first part of the list. These are two artists who have a knack for handling just about anything you can think of. Even with such a diverse list of things that they’re drawing, everything looks authentic and it looks like it all belongs in the same world. That’s not to mention the actual visual storytelling that they execute. This book is a treat to read and look at.