Story & Art: George Perez
Additional Art: Leonardo Paciarotti (colours) and Ed Dukeshire (letters)
A surprisingly captivating scifi romp through space and time, albiet a very crammed first issue.
I first looked at reviewing this issue because the formidable George Perez was behind it and I’m a fan – more of his art than his writing but it was enough to make me pick up the book.
THE REVIEW:
The Sirens seem to be a kind of space-based team of outlaw heroines – wanted dead by many and hero to others, one of which is a truly badass imagining of a race of dragon-people that I hope to see more of in future issues. For reasons unknown they are scattered throughout Earth history and watching their different personalities in the various era’s – such as Agony in ancient Rome and another in America during the 40’s when racism and segregation was still common – all lends itself to nicely establishing a baseline for their personalities in the short time we get with them while jumping between the pasts and the common future from whence they all originated.
The story is clearly one that should have had a slightly bigger first issue as it would have allowed for more fleshing out of what is going on, but it works well as it is now. The only thing I worry is that as a long time scifi fan, a lot of things just naturally were understood but to a casual reader parts of it skirt dangerously close to being confusing and making them maybe lose interest. Which would be a shame.
Art-wise of course, there is no reproach from me. Perez is not just a very good artist, but a great artist of female characters and one of the few that does a nice balance between sultry/sexiness and being realistic and not overtly cliché or exploitive of his female characters, something that is even more important given the majority of characters in this tale are in fact women. Backing Perez up is also a great lineup of artists and their work really complements his and the overall look of the book as a whole is great despite having a lot packed into every panel.
THE LAST WORD:
Definitely a book worth trying out and after the build and the explosive ending, I look forward to the next and hope that Perez and team can make this into the kind of solid scifi adventure for which I’m hoping here.
STORY SCORE: 7 / 10
ART SCORE: 10 / 10
OVERALL SCORE: 8.5 / 10
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