Science Fiction

Ocean

Ocean is a book published through Wildstorm’s Signature series (which effectively is their creator owned line). The associated creators are familiar faces within the Wildstorm Universe or at least offices. Warren from his Stormwatch and Authority days (amongst others) and Chris Spouse from his Tom Strong days. The story is set “100 years from today”, so it’s not giving a set date which is good I guess. The story follows our intergalactic weapons inspector Nathan Kane (think a younger Samuel L Jackson, with a goatie) as he travels on an urgent matter to Jupiter and more specifically Europa (only other ocean planet we know of that is massive, so massive it would make Earth look like a moon). There seems to be something terrible sleeping in the depths of Europa, things that we might not want to awaken, EVER. Things that others seem all to keen to awaken right now.

Ocean continues down some familar territory for Warren Ellis. The man has a serious fascination with space travel in general. He had a bit of that going aboard a space station orbiting earth in Stormwatch (although not his idea, I’m sure the fact that it existed didn’t annoy him or anything), he did the excellent Oribiter graphic novel (which I’ll be writing a review about in the coming weeks), Switchblade Honey and now Ocean.

The world that Ellis has set this story in is very well grounded. He gives the world more credit by including elements like zapping trash disposal on the streets and how space travel is achieved from the Earth’s atmosphere. I thoroughly enjoyed several concepts used in this story. How Corporations have stepped to the next level and now they actually buy humans as slaves effectively for a couple of years or however long their contract is. These drones then follow the word of the Corporation. The Corporation is the bad guy here. What I liked about this concept is that I can actually see this happening. Even though it’s far fetched, it’s also something you’d expect a Corporation to do. The corporation is called ‘Doors’ btw, which I thought was pretty funny. It’s elements like this that made it fun for me.

However it’s not all rosey for Ellis because he does falter in several areas. The main flaw for me is that the story doesn’t deliver a punch. Ellis plays it safe, right until the end. Ellis had 6 issues to play around with this story. He’s delivered a bigger punch in 22 pages. The problem you see is that in 6 months time I will struggle to remember what this story was about, and who the character involved where and whether I enjoyed it or not (unles I read this review). Christopher Allen over at ComicBookGalaxy summed it up really well in this review. I agree to a great extent with all that he’s saying in that review. The problem is that this story is a pretty disposable one. I can remember dialogue Ellis wrote 5 years ago on one of his books, but I can only remember the sexual inuendo that he wrote for this one, mainly because it often was out of place. The other element of this book that didn’t come across well for me were the supporting characters. While I liked Nathan and Fadia, the other characters came across as buffer and that reduced the importance of the story for me.

Ellis’s collaborator on this adventure was the superb Chris Sprouse, who was last seen lurking around Alan Moore drawing some absolutely superb issues of Tom Strong, so while I’m sad he’s not really doing that anymore, it was nice and refereshing to see him draw something different and have some fun with most of it. The designs were truly brilliant to see. Everything is very well thought out and Chris has got this amazing talent to actually make everything seem as though it really could exist. His work is detailed, but only the detail that is necessary. I don’t know what the man is working on now, but whatever it is I can’t wait to see it because he’s a complete pro.

The book design is nothing special. In fact I’d go so far and say that it’s down right boring. This is something that I wish comic companies would do. Listen guys there’s a world of ACTUAL designers out there. Having some guy in the back room in the office does not constitute to a designer. Sort that shit out. Don’t worry I’ve got a lot more than that to say about the subject.

I liked the colours. Very subdued and didn’t distract from the artwork, but actually enhanced. Wildstorm have always had some serious talent behind their colouring departments so I’m never actually worried about that aspect of their books.

Writer: Warren Ellis
Penciller: Chris Sprouse
Inker: Karl Story
Colourist: Randy Mayor, Wendy Broome and Tony Avina
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Original Covers: Michael Golden
Publisher: Wildstorm