Last year, Valiant Entertainment managed to seemingly do the impossible by having the better overall event comic of the year: Book of Death. It had the harrowing sense of dread and intrigue that Convergence lacked, and the scope that Secret Wars attempted but in the end failed at. This year, neither company has a major event comic worth talking about (Civil War what?) and this summer has been thus dubbed the "Summer of 4001 A.D.," named after the comic of the same name. The miniseries is set to end and change the future forever in the Valiant universe at the end of the month, so now I decided to review the first issue and give you many a reason to check it out!
If you're into The Matrix, Blade Runner, The Terminator, 1984, or any recent dystopic novels or fiction then this is more than likely going to float your boat quite well. It's remniscient in many ways to the better parts of DC's own weekly series, Future's End but the key difference is that this doesn't have issues' worth of padding and doesn't suck.
4001 A.D. is oddly enough a spinoff, though technically an event comic, of Valiant's ongoing event comic, Rai. Set in the titular year, it focuses on the tenth Rai of New Japan as he fights for freedom against Father, the AI that has controlled New Japan essentially since its birth. Joining Rai are the young, spunky Lula, Lemur the friendly giant, and Gilad the Eternal Warrior! I've already covered who Gilad is in my X-O Manowar #15 Review, so you can go there for some context on him. I'll get more into who Rai, Lula, Lemur, and Father are in a second.
Basically what you need to know is that New Japan is dying and headed back into Earth, since it's bee floating around Earth's orbit for over a thousand years. This is both good and bad. It's good because it means Father is dying and nobody will be under his control! But it's bad because reentry into Earth from the atmosphere is not the most pleasant thing in the world. So now Rai and Lula have to figure out a way to stop Father from obliterating all life on Japan and save its populace...the only problem is that Rai is stuck on Earth and has to get back to Japan first.
Like I said, this book spins directly out of the events of Rai #12, where Lula implants the virus that starts harming Father and Rai finally comes face to face with Gilad. Part of me wonders why they didn't just make this comic the next parts of the Rai story, but given how they're using the next Rai arc to finally delve into the history of Rai it makes sense that this would be an event.
And boy-howdy is this an event. Jumping right into things, this book excels at giving us scope and showing us the magnitude of this situation. Entire sections of Japan, where hundreds of thousands of people live, are breaking off or being destroyed so that Father may save himself. Everything is chaos. There is only one section of panels on New Japan that is not utter turmoil and it's to give Lula some character development with her parents.
The tone here is pitch-perfect for what the book is going for. I found myself flipping through the pages to see just what the heck would happen next, and writer Matt Kindt (also the writer of Ninjak, Unity, and Divinity/ Divinity II) does so with thought captions by Lula as well as the complete lies that Father is spouting about how the jettisoned sections are "volunteers" to go down to Earth. While it isn't the most original thing we've seen, it is very well executed by Kindt and artist Clayton Crain (who I will get into in just a moment).
There's even a sense of urgency with Rai and his campaign down on Earth. Rai is connected to New Japan, seeing as he is a cyborg, and is capable of feeling it being torn to shreds. It's worth noting, though, that he does not talk about New Japan, but rather it's people and how he can feel their pain. In a nice inversion, Father feels the pain of New Japan itself, but not the people. It's a great parallel Kindt draws on early and then later on in the book to show the contrast between Father and Rai, who have the closest connection in the entire series.
Getting into the characters, the standouts are Lula and Rai. Lula is an awesome character, full of style and attitude. She doesn't take anyone's crap and knows that she has to get things done. Having put a bomb in Father, and thereby New Japan, her guilt is clear in this book even without all of that context. Her narrative captions and actions highlight the situation on New Japan and make all of those parts interesting. The book does slow down, admittedly, when she meets with her parents. They're fairly wooden compared to Lula's amazing character, but it's a necessary scene to show that Lula is out of time and out of ideas, that she is really alone at this moment without Rai's help.
Lemur and Gilad are great foil's for Rai. Lemur is a big goof, but a supportive one. He wants to help Rai get home and defeat Father, and Gilad grasps the gravity of the situation. Considering how the Geomancer is on New Japan (I will one day explain the Geomancer if I haven't, but basically imagine them as Captain Planet's kid...only a lot cooler than Captain Planet) and he is their sworn protector he was basically guilt-tripped in, but his attitude in this issue does not reflect that. Instead he too helps Rai whenever he can, bringing Rai to one of the coolest Easter eggs of the entire series.
I'll say this about 4001 A.D.: for it being so disconnected to the primary events of the Valiant Universe (the goings on with X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, the Psiots, and Divinity) there are so many cool moments that hearken back to the original series that go to show that the things in the past, even thousands of years old, do have an impact. Not every character makes a reappearance from back then, but seeing the "next generation" of things, I suppose, is great. It shows the evolution that the universe has and entices people to read things from both the present and future to see how they collide.
I mean, my jaw dropped when I saw who one of the villains from Rai was. Didn't see it coming, it was great.
However, the biggest pitfall this book has is probably in its context. Kindt and artist David Mack provide three pages of exposition to explain who and what Rai, Father, Lula, and just the year 4001 A.D. are all about, but someone just jumping into the series will miss out on Rai meeting Lemur and the Eternal Warrior, seeing Lula plant the bomb, and seeing the great payoff that so many events in this comic have. The desperation with Father pressing the "self-destruct" button on New Japan is relevant, but someone who has previously read Rai will understand it much better.
I can and can't say this is for casual readers. I think the exposition in the beginning is good enough to get someone going into the story, and is also well-drawn to keep their attention with a nice contrasting style compared to the rest of the book, but there's still many things being missed out on. I can say that the rest of the series is very self-contained to its own events. There aren't any major tie-in issues that need to be read to understand the goings-on. The journey of Rai and Lula is strictly within the pages of 4001 A.D. so in that regard I can sing praises for this book.
Perhaps the biggest praises I can sing for this book are for artist Clayton Crain because oh my God look at these pages.
In both this and the main Rai series leading up to the event Crain uses the same-style of painted panels (not really paint) and it makes for very three-dimensional characters and backgrounds that do feel ready to leap off the pages. The colors pop off every image and stand out on their own. I've always felt that the art in each panel is like something you could hang up and look at and I do often regard this book alone as my favorite comic just to look at, artwork alone.
But the way he uses shadows and color in general help paint the mood that Matt Kindt is going for. When Lula is in doubt he casts shadows over her and when she gains her way he places her in environments of color. The same goes for Rai. And there's a scene at the end, a two-page spread that I won't show because spoilers that just...
WOW
So yeah I pretty much think this comic is great. The story is tense, tight, and has that grand scope that so many summer-blockbuster stories...or summer blockbusters in general...have been missing out on. If you're big into science fiction you'll enjoy this story, and if you're looking for a short event comic to get into this may be the series for you. The artwork is absolutely phenomenal and I may never forget the experience of first reading through this book and just being in awe of the panels I read and watched.
Next time, we leave the Valiant Universe to check out the fun and happy Patsy Walker...in a surprisingly dramatic, but also very good, turn of events for her in Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat #8!
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