Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Kaptara #1
Image Comics
Zdarsky & McLeod
Kaptara is a science-fiction comic that uses a fairly familiar setup to get the characters to an alien planet. The highlight of the book is the artwork as the presentation is one of psychedelic images backed with a wide color palette. The book is a thick read at over thirty pages but it has a good pace to keep things from getting boring. Generally, this is a strong start to this series if you are into science-fiction.
A group of characters struggle to get along with each other in space. Basically, they all have their own niche as to why they are on the ship and their personalities don't quite gel together. They end up having a catastrophe in space and they all eject in separate pods and crash on a planet.
The action keeps rolling as two of the characters find each other and immediately are faced with danger. Eventually the natives come out and it is revealed that the same portal that brought this ship to the foreign world was used to send an army to conquer Earth. Through this sequence we get a decent background on one of the characters as he appears to be the one the series will follow.
The highlight of the comic book is the artwork. The details in the ship, the portal, the landscape, the creatures, the natives are all creative and extremely well thought out. The comic has a lot of color in it but it is used at appropriate times to highlight the story and is not done to excess. The artwork definitely provides a beautiful looking story.
The story isn't anything you haven't read before. The hook for readers to latch onto is the characters and their interactions but if you don't get pulled in with the heavy dialogue and quick-tongues then you might be left cold with this issue. It's hard to distinguish this "stranded" story from a dozen others at this early point.
Kaptara is an amazing looking comic book with a standard plot with interesting characters executing it. I'm not sure where this story is going but the first issue gave just enough to leave me curious about the second issue. The page count and artwork alone are worth the price of admission. I liked this comic but wasn't totally in love with it. I mildly recommend it.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
