3. Black Science #1 by Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera and Dean White (Image)
Image have had quite an exciting year, especially recently. On top of putting out amazing new titles like Sex Criminals, Velvet and Pretty Deadly within the space of a few weeks, we've got yet another new title being released from another top tier Marvel writer - Rick Remender. Joining him is Indestructible Hulk artist Matteo Scalera in a Fantastic Four-esque space/time adventure story called Black Science. Grant McKay is a staunchly individualistic scientist whose adherence to anarchism and anti-authoritarian belief has led to him assembling a defiantly unique science team. It's also led to them dabbling in the forbidden black science which has led them to a hostile alien world full of frog and fish monsters out to kill them! And unless Grant makes it back to the time-jump device in 10 minutes, his entire family will die horribly. Remender certainly knows how to kick things off! The first issue of this excellent new series hits the ground running and sets a blistering pace. Remender hooks the reader with a chase/escape sequence we can immediately understand - humans running away from monsters - while peppering the script with pieces of information that tell us about the characters and their situation. In other words, it avoids the pitfalls of some first issues by not providing expositional info-dumps or by giving us context-free action - it's a masterful balancing act he gets just right. Scalera's art is absolutely beautiful especially combined with Dean White's painted colours which gives the alien worlds an epic, classic pulp-y sci-fi look that's both wondrous and menacing at the same time. The images are weird enough to look different and just this side of recognisable to seem plausible too. It's a really good-looking comic. The story feels Fantastic Four-ish in that its about a family of scientists doing science-y space-y stuff but it's much less wholesome and seems more edgy by having people dedicated to certain non-mainstream political ideals. It's interesting that Black Science is talked about as something not to be dabbled in, like someone describing black magic - it has the air of religion about it, though as others have said before, magic is science we don't yet understand. To be fair though, it doesn't seem like Grant and co. have a handle on this black science either, jumping about in different times and planets, kind of like that 90s TV series, Sliders. And what an ending too! The first issue takes a high concept and makes it instantly accessible and involving. Remender's writing is first class and Scalera and White's artwork is out of this world - Black Science is a terrific first issue in this exciting new series!