I guess the key to enjoying anything dealing with time travel is to not overthink it, as you'll only hurt your fragile little brain. As a fan of time travel stories from the fun (Back To The Future) to the complex (12 Monkeys) to the downright over my head (Primer), I was looking forward to Comeback's five issues being collected as I've yet to read a decent comic dealing with time travel (feel free to throw some recommendations my way in the comments). Written by Ed Brisson and illustrated by Michael Walsh, Comeback is a real labour of love for the creators and tells the story of Reconnect - a company who can reunite people who have died prematurely/by accident with their loved ones. Needless to say the company - fronted by agents Mark and Seth, their boss, and Owen, a fixer - charge a hell of a lot for doing this and as such it's an option only available to the elite. Throw in the fact that time travel is illegal and treated as an act of terrorism, and the FBI are on Reconnect's tail, means reunited families also have to go into a kind of witness protection once reunited. This all comes to a head when the team of Seth and Mark get stuck in the past after a mission to rescue a drunk driver goes a bit... sideways due to a lot of subterfuge that is going on in the background - this provides the main focus of Comeback's narrative.
Rules are always an important aspect to time travel narratives and within its opening pages we are shown the dangers of time travel and later on a double-page spread lays out the framework in a manner that doesn't disrupt the story or overwhelm the reader. There's also an amazing effect later in the story as a timeline is corrected by Owen, Reconnect's fixer, and we see what its repurcussions are both in the future and in the past where the team are. The story is meticulously plotted by Brisson and Walsh's illustration style really suits the type of story Comeback is - it's bold but rough around the edges which adds a subtle gritty feel to it all. As an added bonus, this collection also features a lot of 'behind the scenes' content - so you get to see drafts, sketches, script extracts and the pitch that got Comeback published, which are all very cool and valuable things for any wouldbe writers or artists out there. My main point of contention, and it's nothing anyone can really be blamed for, is that the whole thing is so brief which means there's no real exploration or exposition about the world Comeback is based in or the characters involved or factors of the story, so it feels like the reader is jumping cold into a pre-existing narrative. In a perfect world this would be an ongoing series and my hope is that if sales are good it will be a launching pad for an extended run by Image or Shadowline (publishers of the story) which will expand this world.
Highly recommended, and I'm looking forward to reading more from this creative team.