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Prometheus: Fire And Stone #1

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    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Prometheus: Fire And Stone #1



    Prometheus: Fire And Stone #1
    Released by: Dark Horse Comics
    Released on: September 10th, 2014.
    Purchase From Amazon

    Written by Paul Tobin and illustrated by Juan Ferreyra, the first issue of Prometheus: Fire And Stone starts off with a quick text intro that tells us how Doctor Elizabeth Shaw found a star map to LV-223 that she took as a literal sign from God. When she and the crew of the Prometheus arrived to explore, they found that they we are not alone in this universe and that maybe God isn't such a nice guy after all. Shaw and an Android named David survived the ordeal and took off, hoping to find some answers unaware that what they left behind could turn into something far more horrifying than they could ever imagine.

    Cut to the first page of the comic proper and it's April 4th, 2090 and a small drone type ship attempting to land on the surface of LV-223 is crushed under the heel of something that looks like a robot. Meanwhile, aboard a ship called the Helios, Clara Atkinson talks about their mission to document a landing on LV-223. She's to record the salvage mission along with Captain Angela Foster. These two, and a few others, have just awakened from two years in cryo and Foster has high hopes for the payout on this salvage mission. Also on board is a medical officer named James Weddel, an astro-biologist named Francis Lane and some constructs such as Eldon who have been taking care of things while the humans slept for the last two years. And then onboard the accompany warship, the Perses, are guys like Galgo, Piper and Higgins. These guys are soldiers and they've come out of cryo just in time for the landing. Angela heads back to her room to record a video log and confesses to the camera that while the salvage mission aspect of all of this is legit, there's more to it than that - she knows that in 2090 someone named Sir Peter Weyland sent a team to LV-223 looking for an alien race he called The Engineers and that four years later Weyland himself arrived on the planet and that contrary to popular belief, the man never left. She wants to finish his mission because she knows it has ties to the origins of mankind.

    The crewmembers land and where they expected a wasteland they find a rainforest. They head in, looking for the salvage, and find more than they bargained for…

    Blatantly solidifying the connection between Prometheus and Alien, this first issue is off to a good start. If it sounds a bit like a 'found footage' style comic book, that's not necessarily the case. Clara's supposed documentary does serve as a framing device for certain elements of the story but Tobin's intelligent and well written script shows us how all of this plays out from more than one angle. As this is the first issue a lot of time is, understandably, spent introducing us to the different characters. It's a necessity, otherwise we wouldn't care about what happens, but it does slow the pacing down a little bit. That changes once the ships land on LV-223, however, as we see firsthand what our intrepid space salvagers are about to walk into. It's not pretty.

    What is pretty? The artwork from Juan Ferreyra. There's plenty of detail up front in the foreground with some stylish water color style backgrounds giving this a nice look. His style isn't hyper-realistic but neither is it too cartoonish for the story being told. It's realistic enough but at the same time feels very much like a comic book in the best way possible. Some of the sci-fi elements seem like they're paying tribute to the classic E.C. Comics of the fifties but if we elaborate too much on that, well, spoilers and all that.

    Cliffhanger ending? You know it. And a good one at that. The verdict is still out, there are still three more issues to go here and we're really just getting started but so far this is an interesting exploitation of the stories that Ridley Scott has told in his films. Expectations are high for the second issue.



    • bgart13
      #1
      bgart13
      Senior Member
      bgart13 commented
      Editing a comment
      Any idea how official this is? Meaning, was Scott involved? Is it intended to actually lead into the next movie? If so, I'd check it out. If not, forget it.

    • Ian Jane
      #2
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      Ian Jane commented
      Editing a comment
      It's official in that it's definitely authorized but I don't know that Scott was involved at all. As to whether or not it will tie into the next movie, it's too soon to say!

    • Andrew Monroe
      #3
      Andrew Monroe
      Pallid Hands
      Andrew Monroe commented
      Editing a comment
      I picked this up yesterday - it's off to a decent start. Didn't blow me away but it was gripping enough to bring me back for issue 2. Not so sure I'll follow the other connected comics that are coming out along with this though. If you want a genuinely disturbing and freaky sci-fi/horror comic, try Caliban by Garth Ennis. Number 6 came out yesterday, one more issue to go so the trade collection should be along before too long. That book blows this away.
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