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Johnson, Erik T. – The Outliers #1

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The Outliers #1

It’s worth taking a minute right away to mention how gorgeous the covers to this book are. Yes, “covers,” as there’s a dust jacket type thing that slips over a silver wraparound cover of what are eventually going to be the Outliers. Which is not a spoiler, as that’s what he says up front, but in this issue we only get to see one of these creatures. Oh hey, I’m jumping ahead of myself. This one opens up with a young boy being forced to get on the “short bus” when his bus has a mechanical problem. He’s riding with another kid who never talks (Tsu), they eventually get into an argument and the bus driver is forced to pull over… but not before he almost runs into the giant leg of a creature that we barely see. The bus crashes, the driver and the talking kid make it out, but Tsu is nowhere to be seen. They make it back to the street to find a giant creature placing the bus back on the road and Tsu chanting some words that seem to be controlling the creature. That would all be alarming enough, but those two are not the only ones who see Tsu’s performance, and these new characters seem to have some decidedly violent ideas for the giant creature and Tsu. From there we get a couple of confrontations, the barest glimpses of what may be going on in the big picture, and a solid setup for what’s still to come. In other words, a damned near perfect first issue. This is one of those times where I’m selfishly happy that small press comics have such a tiny audience, as I have a suspicion that anybody in Hollywood with a brain would snatch this story up in a heartbeat if they knew about it. Instead of getting a compromised big budget version of this story, instead we get the pure story in comic form! Eventually. Unless I’m wrong about somebody in Hollywood finding out about this. Eh, enjoy it while you can, as it’s a genuine blast of a comic. $5

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