OUTPOST ZERO #1 to 6

RECENT ISSUE #6
PUBLISHED 1/16/2019

PUBLISHER: IMAGE COMICS

WRITER: SEAN McKEEVER

ARIST: ALEXANDRE TEFENKGI

COLORIST: JEAN-FRANCOIS BEAULIEU

Welcome to Outpost Zero, the smallest town in the universe. The people there work the land, go to the fights every Friday night, and tuck their children into bed-but the Outpost is no place for dreams or aspirations. To survive is ambitious enough. As Alea and her friends graduate to adulthood on a frozen world never meant to support human life, something stirs. Something sees… Explore the mysteries and wonder of the Frost . . .


That is the official write-up for OUTPOST ZERO, the series itself and issue one.

Though, to be honest, they left out of few key words:

Absolutely Engaging, Fantastic

Requiring Read!

Hey, I just started off this piece with what should be my final thoughts. But that’s okay. I wanted to get it out of the way first that this is a title that everyone should be reading.

There are three key reasons everyone in comicdom should be reading this title:

THE ART

The art of ALEXANDRE TEFENKGI may not be as stunning as some people may be used to for Image – but stunning artwork that blows one away is often misleading and flat. It often focuses on the art over the script and fails to connect.

Tefenkgi doesn’t fail to connect – if anything it feels like reconnecting with an older style that values the story and characters over the flash. That is the greatest strength of his art: It connects us to the story, and the characters.

As with any good art it layouts of the story and the characters have distinct looks – but this art goes a little deeper. Tefenkgi doesn’t just make his characters look different and distinct, he makes them feel different.

He has truly found a way not just to show us what the characters look like and how they act, but to also bear a bit of their soul, with the subtle bits that reveal who we all are.

THE WRITING

Can we get SEAN McKEEVER another Eisner, please!

Seriously, his writing on this is ridiculously good. Somehow he has taken a premise that could, and rightfully should, have worn thin by issue six, and somehow it still feels fresh.

Outpost Zero is a science-fiction, coming-of-age, conspiracy theory, survival against all odds story about the decedents of a crashed Gen-Ship surviving on an Ice World, with only a dome to protect them. It is a world where everyone must do their role, or no one survives.

As a giant ice storm hits – Steven – one of three close teen friends leaves the dome and goes into the storm, leaving behind his friends, and an outsider he was close with, to wonder why? A why that may lead them to a place better left alone.

In truth, you can forgot everything in those last two paragraphs, and Image’s official write-up. Why? Because there is one thing that will keep you coming back each issue: The Characters.




McKeever does what any good writer should do, and what any good story should be about – The Characters over everything. Outpost Zero is not about the events that happened – it’s about how the events affect and shape the characters.

Characters that once you read this series, will be the reason you come back. You will not just want to learn what they learn on their journey – you’ll want to learn who they are as well.

Hell, in Issues five and six we learn something new about a character never specifically revealed before, but makes perfect sense for him.

TO KEEP IT GOING!

This is the third reason to read this title! To keep the sales up to a level that will keep this series going!

Outpost Zero is the best kind of comic possible – of any genre.

FINAL THOUGHT:
SEE ABOVE

RATING: 8.75