Rob Lake reviews Spacewarp...
Spacewarp is the hotly anticipated one-shot sci-fi anthology comic by 2000AD creative power-house, Pat Mills. While Spacewarp was released way back in the Summer of 2020, Geek Culture Reviews was just a lost thought in my mind, so forgive me for being a little late to the party.
Anyway, for the last 40+ years, Mills has given his voice and vision to create what 2000AD is today. It's through Mills that we have characters such as Sláine and the ABC Warriors, who are both highly regarded by 2000AD readers. Aiming to re-capture some of this success Pat Mills has envisioned Spacewarp, a sci-fi anthology of seemingly unconnected strips that all fall under the banner of the mysterious Warp Lords.
It's bold, brash and full of British humour that's done in a gorgeous black and white style that echos the early 2000AD Progs. With a selection of stories that perfectly capture the weird and wonderful of the sci-fi anthologies of old, Spacewarp sets out to be the new punk-rocking kid on the block.
We begin our journey with the surreal introduction of the bizarre sci-fi monstrosities - the Warp Lords. This opening acts as a prologue of sorts, that goes into detail of the interlinking thread running throughout the strips featured within this issue. It's a nice introduction to the world and Mills does a grand job in creating these weird and wonderful creatures, who seem to love the pain and misery induced upon the many human-inhabited realities.
I'm not going to go into each strip as in regards to Spacewarp doing so will sour the experience. But I will just point out that my highlight was 'Jurassic Punx'. Dinosaurs running amok in the Kop...what's not to like?
With the ambitiously and far-reaching concept of the Warp Lords "plan" to get across to the reader, Mills fills each of his strips with as much information as possible. All this information comes at you like a wrecking ball as every notion of the story is covered. Of course, there's also some current social satire included too. The 'hide and survive' mock leaflet that accompanies Jurassic Punx, works wonders considering the current Covid-19 pandemic, and there's a fantastic bit that reflects upon the North-South divide that current affairs have brought to the surface.
There's a bit of everything in this one such as, horror, sci-fi, aliens and monsters which all portray the overarching story well. After all, the Warp Lords do mention the various realities so it's bound to be different in each one right?
With such an overload of lore being thrown at us, it's all brought back to Earth with some fantastic accompanying art. Each strip has a different artist behind it, and it's all illustrated with a wonderful use of black and white - much like the early issues of 2000AD. The quality of the art throughout is fantastic and drives Mills writing home. Each story has its own style which creates a great mix of both style and genre.
For Pat Mills fans, Spacewarp is the essential read of 2020. Whilst it can be a little hard to read in places it's still an enjoyable one. It's a comic that's been put together incredibly well and you can see the time and effort put into creating it's interconnected universe. Considering that Spacewarp launched the same time we got both The77 and Sentinel then the future is bright for British comics. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next Spacewarp (if we do get another instalment) but if it's anything like this one it's going to be a sci-fi spectacular in the weird and bizarre.
Rating 8/10
For more information on Spacewarp, check out the official site here.
Physical editions of Spacewarp can be purchased from Get My Comics by clicking here.
Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev
Comments
Post a Comment